by Peter Clines
Colonel Shelly wasn’t too keen on any of this, but he and Smith had a talk and monkey-boy convinced him taking care of Sorensen was in all our best interests. Maybe there was still final testing to be done and if the doc left we were all going to explode or something. Smith talked with the soldiers from Twelve for half an hour, too, impressing the importance of this on them, asking them again and again if they were sure they were up for it, if they knew how to handle different things that might happen. I think in the end they were ready to smack him.
Actually, I know they were ready to smack him. Britney told me so when we met up for a good-luck fuck in the armory before she left. Yeah, it’s frowned on, but believe me, once you’ve had superhuman sex or enhanced sex or whatever you want to call it … well, we weren’t going to give it up until they ordered us to. Besides, at the time I was pretty sure First Sergeant Kennedy didn’t know. She was serious about her new rank, and I’m sure she would’ve had us both over the coals. I found out a little later that she did know, and it was an awful way to find out.
Squad Twelve left with no problem. It all went smooth and by the numbers. Captain Freedom dropped a cluster of grenades about a hundred yards from the fence and half the exes wandered off to see what was making all the noise. They were halfway there and he dropped another cluster to keep their attention.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t he just use the grenades on the exes? I asked that, too, when we were going over the plan. Kennedy smacked me upside the head and reminded me the dead things were already dead (her exact words). The blast might mangle them, might even destroy one if it got caught just right, but odds are it’d just be wasting grenades. A mashed-up, slashed-up torso will kill a person pretty quick, but all it does is slow down exes.
In five minutes our teams in the outer ring had picked off about two hundred exes that wouldn’t leave the fence. The posts on the gates got pulled and Twelve got escorted out. They had one of the base’s five Guardians and Adams was behind the wheel. He floored it and kicked up a fan of dirt and dust as they shot across the desert. In theory they’d reach the airstrip in about thirty minutes, just as the plane was touching down.
Two hours passed. A long intermission.
We still had radio contact, and Kennedy made sure we got the updates she thought we needed. The plane had been twenty minutes late. Enough time for the armored vehicle at the airstrip to attract a lot of undead attention. It took a lot of close-quarters fire to get Mrs. Sorensen and not-yet-legal Sorensen into the Guardian. Sergeant Grant didn’t make it. Neither did the pilot. Another Twelve had been bitten hard and was bleeding, but we didn’t know who. But they had the package and they were heading home.
Sorensen was about halfway between the gates and the helipad. I could see him through the fences. His hair was pretty thin on the top and I remember wondering if he had any sunscreen on. When Kennedy told him the news he applauded.
About fifteen minutes later we saw the cloud of dust where the Guardian was coming across the desert to us. Everyone took their places. Squads Twenty-one, Twenty-two, and Thirty-two loaded fresh mags in our rifles. The two inside gates opened.
In the past two hours, most of the exes had wandered back to the fence. They were pretty determined to get in, what with all these tasty soldiers standing right on the other side. Freedom sent another volley of grenades out across the desert, about ninety degrees off from where the Guardian was coming in. A bunch of the exes at the back of the crowd turned and staggered toward the noise. Not as many as last time, but still a good chunk of them. He sent his second cluster and it attracted a few more.
Then the Guardian stopped. It was still a good two hundred yards from the outside gate. We heard the engine cough and give up under the clicking teeth. It was against protocol, but I switched over to the command channel.
“It’s got a fifty-gallon tank,” snapped Kennedy’s voice. “How the hell are you out of gas?”
“Seven, this is Twelve. I don’t know,” said Britney. Sergeant Washington. I remember that, too. Forcing some distance between us right at that moment. Her voice was stressed. “We’re bone dry. The tank must have taken a hit or something.”
“A hit from what?” I looked up at Kennedy, standing near Freedom on the tower. I could almost see her grinding her teeth.
“I don’t know, first sergeant!”
There were voices in the background when she talked. I could hear somebody muttering, and another woman. Sorensen’s wife, wanting to know why they’d stopped. There was an edge to her voice.
A tiny figure leaped from the passenger side of the Guardian. There was a spare gas can on the roof. You wouldn’t carry one in combat, but it’s not like the exes had snipers hiding on rooftops. He looked around for a moment then dove back inside and slammed the door.
The exes saw him moving. They heard the door. They started to veer away from the captain’s grenade show and stumble toward the armored vehicle. A few by the fence turned and we shot them in the back of the head.
Washington came back on the radio. “Seven, this is Twelve. There’s no gas.”
“Twelve, this is Seven. Explain.”
“Seven, this is Twelve. There are no spare cans. We have no gasoline.”
I saw Kennedy shoot a glare down at Gus and Wilson. I’d be the first to think they fucked up, except I saw them loading two cans on the Guardian an hour before the mission. They should’ve been there.
Freedom set off another wave of explosions away from the carrier. A few exes paused, but most of them kept heading for the Guardian. Movement trumps sound in their tiny brains.
The grenades didn’t help things in the carrier, either. Civilians don’t do well with explosions that aren’t on television. Washington came back on the radio and a girl’s voice was shrieking in the background. “Start the engine,” she was yelling. “Please start the engine.”
“Seven, this is Twelve,” said Washington, “how should we proceed?”
The first of the exes had reached the Guardian. They could see the people inside through the narrow windows. They started clawing at the sides of the vehicle.
“Twelve, this is Seven, hold your position,” said Kennedy. “We’re going to figure a way to get you out of there.”
“Seven, this is Twelve. The Sorensens are not dealing well with this.” The muffled sound of teeth clicking together came over the radio with her voice.
“Twelve, this is Seven, understood,” she said. “Hold your position.”
There were about twenty exes around the armored vehicle. In five minutes there were going to be twice as many. “Twelve to Seven. Copy.”
“Don’t make me run for it,” said Adams in the background of the Guardian. I never thought he’d be one to panic. First-night jitters, I guess. “Please don’t make me run.”
“What’s going on?” Sorensen was next to me. “Why did they stop out there?”
Freedom dropped a few grenades on the exes heading for the transport. It pulped some of them, but once the haze cleared I could see things with no legs dragging themselves toward the armored carrier. One of them had a hole in its stomach that daylight shined through.
Adams snapped. He kicked open the door of the Guardian, knocked a few exes back, and tried to run. He was an Unbreakable, after all. He had a chance. Not much of one, but a chance.
Then he yanked open the back door and pulled the girl out after him. Sorensen’s daughter. He was still going to try to get her to the base. Blood was gushing out of his nose where she’d tried to fight him off or something.
The doc pressed himself against the gate. I pulled him back so the exes wouldn’t chew his fingers off. “What’s he doing?” shouted Sorensen. “What’s he doing?”
Adams knocked down a bunch of exes. Hit them with his shoulder one after another. Even opened up on a few with his Bravo. He was maybe thirty yards from the Guardian, dragging the wailing girl behind him, when he stumbled. Stumble’s not the best word. He just jerked to a stop
. At first I thought he slipped up on some zombie-mush from the barrage. Eddie Franklin had a better view and he told me later it was like one of his legs cramped up or something in the middle of the stride. A few people in the towers tried to give him cover fire, but it wasn’t enough.
The girl was screaming for her father. He heard her. We all heard her.
The exes swarmed over them. Even this far out we saw flashes of red from the girl. Adams fought for a few moments, even after his ACUs turned red. They were hidden by a press of exes, so we didn’t see them die. But I’m pretty sure we heard it, even over all the chattering teeth.
Sorensen started howling. No other word for it. Just this raw sound coming out of him.
Someone tried to pull the rear door shut on the Guardian and got dragged out. Three or four dead things were forcing their way through the driver’s door at the same time. I remember I heard screaming through the radio and the same screams off in the distance. It was a creepy stereo effect that made my stomach churn. Screams and gunfire and teeth.
I kept waiting for Washington—for Britney—to leap out of the transport and up onto the relative safety of the roof. She could last for an hour or two up there. Long enough for us to get another Guardian or a Humvee or something out there.
Sorensen was wailing in my arms. “Do something!” He looked at me and shouted up at Freedom. “Why aren’t you helping them?”
Somebody yanked my radio out of my ear. Kennedy was standing next to me. She’d leaped down from the tower. “Sergeant Harrison,” she told me, “escort the doctor away from the fence.”
Sorensen grabbed her sleeve. “You have to help them,” he screamed. He was crying so much his beard had two wet streaks in it. “You have to do something!”
“I’ll lead the recovery team,” I said. “Twenty-one can be out there in ten min—”
“Sergeant,” snapped Kennedy, “I am ordering you to escort the doctor out of sight of the fence and into that building. Clear?” She pointed over my shoulder.
“Yes, first sergeant.” That’s when I knew Britney was dead. They were all dead. “Clear.”
I dragged the doctor away. I could bench-press over nine hundred pounds, but he was twisting and flailing and shrieking and trying to get to the gate. If you’ve ever tried to hold a really determined four-year-old, that’s what I was dealing with. I didn’t look back. My radio was dangling around my neck and I could still hear the screams. There were less of them, but one of them was a woman’s.
I kicked open the doors of the admin building, broke one of the hinges, and dropped Sorensen into a lobby chair. He was just gone. He wasn’t moving. There was a vacant look in his eyes I remember from a few guys after their first live-fire test. He couldn’t process what was happening. Who could blame him? He’d just seen his daughter taken down in front of him.
I thought about Britney. Three hours ago she’d been alive. I was very cold all of a sudden. Cold and empty, like everything in my belly had just vanished and left me hollow. I thought about sitting down, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t get back up if I did. I leaned against the wall.
Britney was dead. Everyone in Twelve was dead. There was never going to be an Army Band again. No horn lessons for kids. No nights playing jazz down in the Gaslamp. Nothing.
“Sergeant Harrison?” The doctor’s voice was small and reedy. He was hoarse from screaming.
“Yes, sir?”
He looked up at me. It was like locking eyes with a sad dog. He was calling me by name, but I don’t think he really knew who I was.
“Are they …” he started. He coughed, cleared his throat, and whispered, “Are they going out soon to rescue Eva and Madelyn?”
ST. GEORGE PUSHED the last bit of toast into his mouth. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had butter. He almost felt guilty for eating it.
Across from him, Stealth sat before an empty plate with her arms crossed. She hadn’t made a sound since they’d been led to the officers’ mess for breakfast and sat down alone.
He pushed the plate a few inches away. “Are you going to eat anything?”
“No.”
“You didn’t eat anything last night, either.”
“As usual, George, your attention to detail is beyond compare.”
“You should eat something to keep your strength up. Might make you less grouchy, too.”
Her head tilted inside the hood. “You are making a joke at my expense.”
“In a good-natured way. You do need to eat.”
“I ate last night in my assigned quarters.”
“Ate what?”
“Food from the dinner with Colonel Shelly.”
“You smuggled food back to your room?”
“I did.”
“Weren’t you worried about someone watching you eat with all these cameras?”
“There are three in my quarters,” she said. “I disabled the two visible ones and allowed them to think I had not discovered the one concealed in the air vent. I ate with my back to it.”
“And then what? Slept in your uniform?”
“Of course.”
St. George stood up and stretched. “So you still don’t trust them?”
“I maintain a healthy skepticism, yes.”
A sergeant marched into the mess hall. “Good morning, ma’am, sir,” he said. “I have messages for you. Colonel Shelly has asked for a meeting with you at eleven-thirty hours to discuss reintegrating Los Angeles into controlled territory. Also Dr. Morris asked if you could join her in D Lab once you’re done eating.”
“Where is that?”
“The far side of the complex, ma’am. East side, heading north. It’s the only tall building without satellite dishes on the roof.” He held a folded piece of paper out to her. “We also received a message from your people at the Mount. The colonel asked that you get any such communications as soon as possible.”
Stealth glanced at the sheet of paper and handed it off to St. George.
Just checking in. Hope things are going good with our new friends. Dark clouds here since last night, might even rain. Otherwise all good.
—Hiram Eggplant Jarvis
“When was this received?” she asked. “About twenty minutes ago, I think, ma’am.”
“Thank you, sergeant.”
He gave her a polite bow of his head and left.
The blank planes of her mask shifted. “We have a problem, George.”
“I kind of gathered.” He held up the paper. “Unless eggplant is Jarvis’s middle name, I’m guessing it’s a code?”
“It is, as I am sure the military has already deduced.”
“And it means …?”
“The message is authentic. Jarvis was to use the name of a vegetable we do not grow in the main garden as his middle name, rotating in a new name for each communication. Zzzap did not return to the Mount.” She strode out of the mess hall.
He took a few quick steps to catch up with her. “What?”
“Before we left I instructed Jarvis in a series of phrases and compromise words to use in any communications. References to the weather deal with us. The mention of the sun, or lack thereof, tells me Zzzap has gone missing.”
“I think you might be overreacting just a bit.”
“The message indicates he has been absent since last night. We were told on our arrival he had just left to return to the Mount. Since you did not see him there, the logical assumption is he went missing sometime after leaving Krypton Base. Assuming he did leave the base.”
They pushed open a double set of doors and stepped out into the morning sun. Stealth looked even more like a walking shadow in the brilliant light.
“Assuming he didn’t just go sightseeing or something,” said St. George. “He’s gone off flitting around the world before. You know what he told me the morning after the Fourth? He’s been thinking of flying to the Moon. Just to check it out. He was pretty sure he could make it there in under an hour.”
“He has
always made a point of telling us where he was going and for how long.”
“Telling us, yeah. It might not occur to him to tell anyone else. Not until he gets back, anyway. You’ve got to admit, Barry can get a little absentminded at times.”
She stopped walking and turned to him. “You do not find this disturbing?”
“A little bit, yeah,” he said. He glanced around and dropped his voice. “But I’m not going to declare war on the U. S. Army just because I feel a little disturbed. Do I disagree with some of their choices? Yes. Are they doing some weird things with the exes? Hell, yes. But it’s still America we’re talking about. From what Shelly was saying last night it sounds like the president might even still be alive and holed up at NORAD or something.”
“NORAD could be as much a trap as a safe haven if a single infected person was inside. Besides, Shelly did not say the president was still alive.”
“Yeah, but he also didn’t say he was dead, and he did say he was still getting orders from above.”
“I hope you are right, George. But there are too many people depending on us to not make contingency plans.”
“I don’t know,” said Danielle. She glanced up from the circuits she was soldering. “Maybe he’s just off checking out other cities or something again.”
St. George threw his head back and sighed with relief.
“That’s what I said.”
The redhead bent to her work again. “Besides, what could they even do to him? He’s probably invulnerable to everything they’ve got on this base, even with all the super-soldiers.”
“Zzzap is,” said Stealth. “Barry is not.”
“Look,” said St. George, “we’ll ask the colonel about it again at this meeting. Until then, I think we need to let this drop. I don’t want to mess anything up with accusations and then have Barry show up half an hour later bragging he spent the night racing between Hubble and the space station. Okay?”