A Place Outside The Wild

by Daniel Humphreys

  “So — Chesty?”

  “Ah,” Hanratty nodded. “Marine Corps tradition. Our mascot has been an English bulldog for a while. They’re always named after Chesty Puller, the most decorated Marine, well, ever.”

  “I see.” She stuck out her hand. “Valerie — Val — McKee. I’m a teacher.”

  Hanratty shifted the tray to one hand and returned the gesture. “Captain Adam Hanratty. Call me Adam, please.” The line shifted a bit, and he grabbed a plate, knife, and fork out of a bin in front of him.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Adam,” she said. “I’m sorry about what happened with Betty. She’s been improving a bit here, lately, but I guess it was just too much of a shock to the system.”

  “No apologies necessary,” he said. “I should have been ready for it. Guess I was just so overwhelmed with how . . . how . . .” He searched for the words. “You realize how special this place is, don’t you?”

  She frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  The line advanced and Hanratty studied the contents of the first serving pan. It looked to be actual, no kidding, pot roast — big chunks of beef swam in the broth with healthy pieces of carrot and potato. Here and there he even saw bits of onion. His mouth began to water.

  “Well,” he said, as he grabbed the serving spoon and doled some out onto his plate. “This right here is a great object example. We do have some farming, at certain bases we’ve reclaimed. Believe it or not, the military does have things like veterinary specialties, and you can be damn sure we’ve been cross-training as much as possible. But for the most part, if it’s not a prepackaged meal, it’s something simple like a rabbit or a deer, or something a scavenging party dug up. Now sure, part of that is economies of scale; we’ve got . . .” He bit back the hard number; safe as it felt here, it wouldn’t do to breach OpSec, “a lot more people, and it takes a great deal more effort to keep them fed. And we’ve had other priorities, if I’m being honest.”

  Her tone betrayed her amusement. “I follow. I’ve had to do my share of farming these past few years. It’s definitely labor-intensive, and that’s with plenty of equipment available to us. Fuel and the zombies are our big obstacle there.”

  “Sure,” Hanratty said. Chunks of what looked like cornbread filled the next pan. He offered a piece to Val before putting one onto his plate with a pair of tongs. She declined, wrinkling her nose in mild disgust.

  “Sore subject,” she said. “Cornbread kept us fed for a long time, but it gets old.”

  “Understood, there have been times where I thought I might cry if I had to eat another MRE. Okay, so, let me ask you this — what sort of experience have you all had with other survivors?”

  Val shrugged. “Not much, myself, but word gets around, of course. There were a couple of smaller families around, in the beginning. We offered to have them come in and join us, but they held out on their own for various reasons. They, well, aren’t around any longer. There was some funny guy they called the Tinker who used to travel around and try to trade for supplies, but no one has seen him for years. Other than that, not much. Some of the salvage crews have some pretty hair-raising stories, but we’ve never had barbarians at the gate, or anything like that.”

  Hanratty studied the last pan and tried to decide if he was seeing things or not. It looked like some sort of pastry, but flecks of bright red and larger, pale chunks shot through the crust. It looked almost like . . . He licked his lips. “Is that fruit?”

  Val glanced down. “Yeah, apple turnovers. We don’t have a ton of sugar, so they’re not super sweet, but they’re not horrible. There are a couple trees behind my house.”

  Hanratty grinned and put one on his plate. “Yeah. Haven’t seen fresh fruit in a long time. Reason number six hundred and twelve why this place is special.”

  “Well, I’m glad you think so,” Val laughed. They collected their trays and walked to one of the tables. A few folks were already sitting there, but there was plenty of room. Hanratty nodded to the people already sitting and took his own seat. Val sat across from him, and he began to tuck in, in earnest.

  The hardest part was not wolfing it down; he’d been eating just for fuel for so long that any variance in flavor and texture was pure ambrosia. Not to mention that the fighting conditions of the past few years had not been conducive to drawn out, relaxed meals.

  He’d made a good dent in the pot roast when Gunny Vance walked up with his own tray. The older man sat down next to Val with a slight smile on his face as he took in Hanratty. The captain took note of the glance that passed between the teacher and the retired Marine and thought, Ah. Well, that helped categorize Val’s friendliness and willingness to speak. Fair enough. He needed to focus on the mission before everything else, even though the circumstances in this community were idyllic compared to the rest of the world.

  “Well, I believe I’ve rounded up everyone there is to be had,” the Gunny said after he’d taken a few bites of his own meal. “So you should have a fairly representative audience. Course, the rumor mill being what it is, the rest of the town will know everything in due course.”

  Hanratty laughed and broke his cornbread in half. The texture was a bit rough, but he was in no position to complain. “Just like the old sergeant’s network, eh, Gunny? Whenever I need to know the real scuttlebutt I just hit up the First Sergeant.”

  The other man chuckled. “Guess some things never change.” The Gunny reached out and squeezed Val’s hand. “I worried you might not be too impressed by the soup of the day, but I guess I forgot how old MRE’s get.”

  “Amen to that,” Hanratty said. He was just reaching out to take a bite of the turnover when Norma Benedict called out from the podium. “Captain Hanratty? Would you like to say a few words?”

  He sighed mentally and lowered the lump of dough and fruit back onto the tray. Standing, Hanratty moved to the podium and shook the woman’s hand. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said and looked out over the crowd. He knew what he needed to say, and perhaps more important, what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have it mentally composed into any logical order. Finally, he began, “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Americans, my name is Adam Hanratty. I’m a captain in the Marine Corps and let me say to you, kudos for what you’ve accomplished. It’s impressive, given the challenges I know you’ve faced.” He paused for a moment and studied the crowd. There were more than a few hard faces out there, but some looked hopeful, as well. “My Marines and I came to you for a couple of reasons. First, on behalf of the command staff of the United States Armed Forces — we’re back.”

  “Took you long enough,” a voice accused from the audience.

  Hanratty looked down at the surface of the podium for a long moment and tried to compose his thoughts. Finally, he raised his head and looked out to the part of the audience where the accusation had come from.

  “You’re right. It did. But I’m just a captain. Not too long ago, I was a lieutenant, and on the day of the fall I was what senior enlisted men like to call an F-U-N.” A chortle of laughter rippled through the audience from those who understood the reference. “Spoiler alert for those who’ve never served, it doesn’t spell ‘fun’, and it’s an acronym that ends in ‘useless newbie’. You can fill in the blank, I’m sure.

  “I follow orders unless I believe them to be illegal. In my case following orders meant remaining on base not too long ago when I was less than thirty miles from my parents’ house. I grew up in Toledo. Air reconnaissance determined that infected density remains too high there for recovery operations.” Hanratty fell silent again. His throat was thickening with emotion. He attempted to regain his composure, then decided it wasn’t worth it. He raised his head back up. “We’ve all lost people. And we’re not serving under emotionless robots. My commanding officer sat with me as we watched the drone feed over my neighborhood.” Hanratty shrugged. “The cameras in them are pretty good, but we try to stay high enough to stay out of sight. Even without a clear picture, I got my closure. Took us long enough? Y
ou don’t know the half of it, pal.

  “We presume that members of the military within the continental United States were either killed in action or infected. The surviving element consists of those members who were in overseas stations, and those we’ve managed to recruit to our cause.

  “In the past eight years, we faced many of our own struggles. The second wave hit the Navy hard, and we lost a lot of ships. But we were also able to hold quite a few. All in all, we have a not-insignificant amount of sea lift power. You’ll forgive me if I don’t go into specifics; it’s moot for the purposes of this discussion as well as classified.

  “A modern military runs on its logistical support. Fuel, food, fresh water. The fall cut us off from our normal resources. Before we could be of any help to anyone, we had to secure lines of supply for ourselves. With the reduction in the size of the military, existing stockpiles of rations were sufficient, but getting to them was a problem. We had to develop new skills to fight the infected. I’m sure you went through something similar. Fuel was more problematic. I’m happy to say that, for the most part, those issues are gone. One of the things we’re happy to offer down the road is a steady supply of fresh diesel fuel in exchange for surplus food. If you’re interested, of course.”

  The crowd began to buzz with excitement. He saw motion out of the corner of his eye, and turned to look. A pale, dark-haired brunette in medical scrubs had stood up to speak. Hanratty gave her the once-over despite himself. He’d never thought much of the nurse look, but she pulled it off, in spades. “What about medical supplies? Any chance of getting anything there?”

  Hanratty nodded. “I can’t promise much, but we’ve been producing as well as scavenging, so there’s a bit of surplus. When the time comes, I’ll have our corpsmen meet with you, Miss . . . ?”

  “Ferguson. Frannie Ferguson.” She nodded her thanks and retook her seat.

  Medical supplies must have been an issue because the room buzzed with conversation. Hanratty let them talk until the discussion died down a bit, then resumed his speech. “I understand you’ve been growing a lot of soybeans. Well, perhaps with a better fuel supply, you can switch over to something more fit for human consumption. I’m not speaking only for myself when I say that it’s been too damn long since I’ve had a hamburger. You may just become my General’s favorite people in the world once he hears about your cattle herd.”

  A ripple of laughter went through the crowd.

  “As part of Operation Atlantic Fury, my unit has the task of establishing secure bases within the eastern half of the country. From these bases we will begin clearance of the infected population and return this land to the living once more. We transited the St. Lawrence Seaway and have secured Camp Perry, Ohio, as the first of these bases. With the blessing of this community, and on behalf of my commanding officer, General Dennis Vincent, we’d like to offer to make this the second base in that effort.”

  This time, when the crowd fell silent, you could have heard a pin drop.

  Chapter 14

  When Tom Oliver decided to build the town’s first pub, he’d reasoned that having a meeting room with more privacy would be a good thing to have. Since then, it had become an impromptu conference room for anyone who needed to meet without having the entire cafeteria around. When Miles had recruited Vir, they’d met here and hashed out the details over Tom’s ubiquitous burgers and hand-cut French fries.

  By the time Miles pulled back the curtain that partitioned the meeting room from the rest of the bar, Pete and the SEALs already sat around the room’s lone table. The finish of the huge circular table bore the scars of wear and tear, but the wood was well-polished and sanded smooth as silk. Furniture was never a high priority for salvage crews. If the rumors held any truth, Tom had made it more than worth Charlie’s while.

  Miles pulled the curtain closed as he stepped through, then turned and mock-sang. “We’re Knights of the Round Table, we dance whenever we’re able. We do routines and chorus scenes . . .” He trailed off; his audience consisted of four blank faces.

  “All right, then, tough room,” he said, and pulled out a chair and sat down. The Navy guys had clustered together on the opposite side of the room from the entrance. Watching the door, Miles guessed. His own chosen seat was opposite the lieutenant, and Pete was a couple of seats away to his right.

  “My nephew thinks he’s funny,” Pete snarked, “but he’s not entirely useless in a fight.”

  Lieutenant Ross eyed Pete with a frown. “I’m prepared to give your nephew a bit more detail than we’re sharing with the general population. But it would be a waste of time asking you to step out, wouldn’t it?”

  Pete’s eyes twinkled. “You’re pretty sharp, for a swabbie.”

  The burly old chief chuckled, and the lieutenant just shook his head.

  “Fine,” Ross said, “we’ll begin. Just to confirm, you are Miles Matthews, once employed by GenPharm BioMedical as an IT administrator?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Miles said. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you come by that information?”

  The SEALs laughed. After it died down, the lieutenant said, with a wry grin, “IRS database.”

  Miles crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Yeah, it figures that part of the government would keep functioning.”

  Ross shrugged. “National crisis contingency; all electronic government assets go into secure mode and are accessible only via a rotating encrypted cipher installed on strategically important military assets. Thankfully, that includes automatic data backups to certain key satellites; running an op in downtown DC would be a cluster of epic proportions. As it is, we just had to park a ship with the necessary communications equipment long enough to pull the relevant data down. NSA, IRS, CDC. Which is what brings us to you.” He fell silent as footsteps approached.

  Tom Oliver stuck his head through the curtain. “Gentlemen, I don’t have any menus — did Pete or Miles give you the gist of things?”

  “Not just yet, Tom, but let’s get it over with.” Pete turned to the SEALs. “Easy as it gets. The only choice you get is how well you want it cooked, cheese or not — I’d pass myself, it came out of a can — and vegetables on the side.”

  After the SEALs put in their orders, he and Pete put in theirs. Miles couldn’t help but notice a similar look of wonder on their faces to what Hanratty had possessed when he’d seen the herd of cattle. As Tom turned to leave, Pete concluded, “And bring us a round of beers and plenty of ketchup.” He winked at Miles. “I’m sure Councilwoman Benedict will be glad to cover the cost.”

  Miles ignored the jibe and said to Ross, “All right, you’ve got me and I’m listening. How can I help you, Lieutenant?”

  “We have a not-insignificant number of medical staff still around — doctors and corpsmen, that sort of thing. In the beginning of the fall, key members of particular agencies evacuated, albeit in a haphazard manner, to various offshore elements. Which is how we’ve come to be babysitting quite a few virologists and research scientists who were former employees of the Centers for Disease Control and the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases — USAMRIID. Up until recently they haven’t had the opportunity to devote much time to their actual profession; we’ve been too busy trying to find ways to feed ourselves and find secure places to live.

  “That situation is no longer a problem, which has given the eggheads time to dig through the data dump we pulled out of the CDC. There were quite a few e-mails in that data, and a few of them refer to a promising experimental treatment that had shown lab success in vaccinating against the Brazilian flu. Revolutionary stuff, apparently, out of a nondescript bio-tech.”

  “I’m starting to see where this is going,” Miles said.

  Ross gave him a thin smile. “Problem, of course, was that this particular bio-tech was in the Midwestern United States. We’ve lost most of our fixed-wing fleet. But even if we parachuted people in, we’d have no good way to extract them.”

  “Done crazier
stuff, of course,” Chief Foraker offered. “I put my foot down on that one.”

  Ross smiled. “Indeed, he did. So it comes down to a question of geography. Command was planning the operation to begin retaking the country, anyway, so we suggested some modifications to the op order.” He glanced over at Pete and said, “The Marine contingent was voting for us to land at Parris Island and make MCAS Beaufort our first waypoint, but we couldn’t pass up this opportunity. So approximately two months ago we made landfall and began the process of retaking Camp Perry.”

  Miles blanched. “You came in through the Great Lakes?” He tried to visualize the route in his head and failed. “How?”

  “There are canals, of course.” Ross sounded tired. “The width of the canals limited which ships we could use, which made things a little dicey. We had to use submarines to scout the way; who knew what sort of sediment had built up over the years and changed the depth of the rivers.” He rubbed the back of his head. “We had a crew of engineers with us, and we had to rig each lock to be remote-operated. Some places, that wasn’t such a big deal; they were pretty much abandoned . . . Others, not so much. We lost a few men.”

  “I’m sorry,” Miles said, and Ross nodded.

  “Thanks. We pushed through, though. Once we rigged the locks it wasn’t so bad, and we could begin ferrying supplies and troops. Secured a portion of Camp Perry, and then began pushing out patrols to the south.

  “We’ve got enough functional satellite recon left that we could do a pretty good assessment of the area leading to and around the GenPharm complex. And it became obvious pretty fast that going in on the ground was a bad, bad idea.”

  “I can imagine,” Miles said. “Most of my recurring nightmares involve being in the city on Z-Day.”