by Josh Hilden
Liam moved as quickly as his bad right leg would allow toward the desk at the end of the room and grabbed up the old style corded phone. He was immediately connected to the facility switchboard. He tried not to think about what he had just seen, and instead ordered his thoughts for the conversation he was going to have to have.
“This is Oversight Supervisory Special Agent Liam Harrison, Security Code Gamma Tango Hotel 1 9 7 6. I need you to put me through to the Director right now.” He delivered it all in one steady exhaled breath. It was a calming trick he had learned when he had first been a ‘Shave Tailed’ Second Lieutenant that had just landed in the mythical land of Vietnam.
To Liam it felt like another lifetime ago.
There were a few click and beeps as the call was scrambled, beamed to the satellite, beamed down to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade Maryland. Then Liam assumed it was sent via land line to Washington where it was unscrambled and connected to the Director of the.
”This is Hadley, has there been a change in the situation Harrison?” a cold no nonsense voice asked on the other end. Liam was one of the few people who were not instantly intimidated by NSA Director Gerald Hadley. This time was no exception. The information he had to relay was devastating nonetheless.
“Code Word Sunflower” He said into the hand set.
There was a long pause, maybe the first Liam had ever experienced when talking with the Director, and then a one word response.
“Damn.”
Liam launched into a rundown of what’d happened and the status of the White River Facility. In less than twenty minutes he’d received his marching orders and was headed for the lift to the surface.
He knew he was heading straight into heart of the waiting and hungry danger.
3
In-Flight to Wright Patterson AFB Dayton, Ohio
October 18, 2012 AD (Day One)
8:20am EST
It had taken Liam a lot longer to get things situated at White River than he would have believed. He assembled the facilities administration and security personnel, along with Lieutenant General Ryan Hart who was the nominal commander of the White River complex, and explained the situation to them as fast as he could. None of them wanted to believe the information that the dead were getting back up and trying to eat anyone that their cloudy eyes happened to fixate upon. General Hart was the only one that had believed him outright and backed his position with the civilian staff.
The fact that Captain Ryan Hart had been his CO in Vietnam and was the Godfather of both of his children didn’t hurt.
Ryan had saved him from probably being arrested and jailed on attempted murder charges. After they had arrived on the Aircraft Carrier when in the helicopters that pulled them off the roof of the embassy in Saigon he nearly snapped. They had been stowing their gear and settling the men into temporary shelters on the flight deck when Liam had seen the Deputy Ambassador who’d taken his love child and left his lover behind.
Before he knew what he was doing Liam, unholstered his .45 Colt and began marching toward the fat smug bastard. Seconds before he would’ve been in range to safely blow the child molesting bastard’s head off, a large black hand snatched the pistol from his and another had spun him around. Liam was looking into two perfect white orbs set in skin almost as black as midnight and, he knew Ryan Hart had just saved him from throwing his life away.
Even with General Hart’s help it had taken yelling and threats to get them to do what they were told. He relayed the orders and appropriate code phrases that Hadley had given him. Supposedly it’d all come from the President who Hadley claimed was aboard Air Force One and en route to a secured installation. Liam was not sure that was the case. He informed them that they were to button the facility down. Nobody was to enter or leave White River without the appropriate code phrases following his departure until they received the all clear or were physically relieved.
He took a military transport from Ascota Air National Guard Base, near the town of White Harbor, and headed for Wright Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton Ohio. Hadley said he would meet him there. Liam was surprised that Hadley was not having him report to DC, or Fort Meade at the very least. He asked the Director this question.
Hadley responded, “I went wheels up five minutes after the initial briefing. We all did. The last thing that we need is for the nation’s leadership to be trapped and vulnerable on the ground if this gets worse. Considering what you’ve just told me I would say we were right.
We are already receiving reports of incidents from all over the globe--not just here in the United States. Right now the leadership of the country is headed to various shelters across the continent.” There was no smugness in his voice, just a cold practicality that Liam had always admired and feared a little. It was Hadley who’d personally recruited Liam out of the Army’s Delta Force and into the NSA after that CF of a mess that officially never happened in North Korea.
After hanging up with the director, Liam looked down at the handset and was unsure what to do with it. If he made the call, he would be breaking all of the secrecy and nondisclosure oaths he’d made since joining the NSA. If he didn’t take this opportunity and something happened to Nancy and Little Charlie he would never be able to live with himself again.
He wasn’t naïve. He knew that his daughter hated him ever since her mother died. Liam knew that she was sick. When he was ordered out of the country on a mission he had been unable to refuse. She died while he’d been waist deep in proverbial shit in Taiwan. Afterward he’d taken the promotion they’d been offering him for five years. The damage had been done.
She was still his only daughter and Little Charlie was his only grandchild. He had to give them a heads up. His only son, Christopher, was a Marine Captain stationed in San Diego. He was probably as safe as he could be, but Nancy and Little Charlie lived in Canton Michigan, just outside of Ann Arbor, where she was a Branch Manager for Comerica Bank. He had to get her away from the city. Just in case.
He picked up the phone and dialed the 734 area code. The phone rang three times and then was picked up.
“Hello?” A high pitched, and to Liam’s ears, achingly beautiful child’s voice said.
“Hi Charlie, its Grandpa,” Liam said and grinned. That little boy could always make him smile with just a word.
“Grandpa, Grandpa!” He cried and Liam could see him dancing around the room in his mind’s eye.
“Charlie, is your Mommy home?” He asked the seven year old. Please God, just don’t let it be the sitter there.
“Sure,” he said and then Liam heard him put the phone on the table and yell, “MOMMY, GRANDPA IS ON THE PHONE!”
He heard the sounds of the phone being handed over and then Nancy said, “Go back to the living room Charlie.”
“But I wanna talk to Grandpa.” He said, and Liam’s heart swelled a little more.
“You can talk to him after I do, now go watch your cartoons.” Hearing the way she said it gave him a little shot of pride. If Liam ever told Nancy that when she gave orders she sounded just like him she might shoot him.
“Hi Dad,” She said and his heart sank a little. There was the voice of the cold Nancy that had been his daughter’s front when speaking to him for so many years. He had to plunge ahead.
“Nancy,” he began, “I know you aren’t real happy to hear from me out of the blue but I swear that this is important.”
“Dad, can you make this quick? I’m late for work, the baby sitter didn’t show up and she is not answering her phone.” He could hear the irritation in her voice as clear as a bell.
“I need you to listen to me and believe what I am telling you.” He took in a long deep breath and then let it out slowly before he began to talk. He spent ten minutes telling her everything that had happened in the last twelve hours. He left out no details and revealed enough classified information to have both of them disappeared on the grounds of ‘National Security’.
“Dad, are you drunk?” she asked af
ter he had finished. He had expected any number of reactions but surprisingly this had not been one of them.
“No I’m not drunk, I’m serious Nancy. I want you to pack up your car and take Charlie north.” Her disbelief didn’t surprise him, but he was nevertheless irritated at the way she dismissed what he said.
“Why? This all sounds like a fairytale or a damn horror movie, Dad. Look, this is really entertaining but I have to get to work. And I still need to find someone to watch Charlie.” She evidently thought that this was the end of the conversation. Liam heard her begin to remove the phone from her ear.
He did the only thing that he could.
“GODDAMNIT, NANCY, I AM YOUR FUCKING FATHER AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!” He had not yelled at her since the fight at her Mother’s wake. The fight that had destroyed what was left of his family.
Silence was all that followed this outburst. He knew that she was still on the line so he continued in a much more subdued manner. “I swear on your Mother’s soul that I am telling you the truth. I need you to head for the Upper Peninsula. There is a research facility there in White River. When you get there give them this code phrase,” he rattled off a series of numbers and letters, ”and they will allow the two of you to enter.” She had not said anything so he plunged onward, “The man in charge is your uncle Ryan. Tell him that I sent you. He will make sure that you and Charlie are safe until I arrive.” He waited for her response.
“Dad, this sounds impossible.” The invoking of Susan’s memory had convinced her that he was serious. Now she sounded scared.
“It is one hundred percent true.” He fought back relief that she believed him.
“Nancy, don’t trust anyone. It’s hard to tell who has been bitten until they die. Remember that only damage to the brain is a sure way to prevent a dead person from getting back up. Do you still have the gun?” When she had divorced Tom, Liam had bought his daughter a .357 revolver for home defense. She had grown up shooting guns. When she had been a kid one of their favorite family activities was to go shooting. He often thought that her interest in mainly physical activities instead of the traditional girlie things that other daughters liked should have been a clue about the future.
“Of course I do!” She sounded miffed again. He knew that the question would irk her and that had been his primary reason for asking it. The question had helped to center her and bring her focus back to the immediate danger.
“Wear it wherever you go.”
“Daddy,” it was the first time she had called him that since Susan had died. A large hard lump rose in his throat.
“Yeah, Bunny,” he had not used her childhood nickname since she had turned eleven and informed him that she no longer wanted to be referred to as a bunny.
“You are coming right?”
“There are a few things that I need to do first but I’ll be there, nothing will stop me. I promise.” He tried not to let her know how close he was to tears.
“I love you, Daddy.” She started to cry.
“I love you, Bunny.” Liam broke down and let the tears flow down his cheeks.
They both hung up and Liam prayed that she would make it to White River without any problems. It never even dawned on him that he might be the one who found the journey difficult, not Nancy.
Chapter Three
1
The Carson Family Residence
Moraine, Ohio (South of Dayton)
October 18, 2012 AD (Day One)
9:20am EST
Kyle awoke when a small tight ball landed square on his chest with a pissed off hiss. He screamed and jumped back as his cat, a five year old Tonkenese name Oscar, decided that it was time for his human partner to get up and pay attention to him. Tonkenese looked like bigger more heavy set versions of Siamese cats. Kyle’s father had brought the, then three month old kitten, home to Kyle for making it to the State Track and Field Championships. Kyle loved Oscar more than anything else on the planet, so of course his mother hated him and had tried to get rid of the clever cream colored hunter for years.
Now that Kyle was awake, Oscar began to bump his head into Kyle’s chest as a sign of affection. Kyle laughed at his antics. Then fire lanced through his skull.
God his head hurt! Why the hell had he let Benny convince him that it would be a good idea to get completely tore up last night? One of these days he was going to tell Benny he really thought some of his ideas were stupid. He had known Benny since before Kindergarten and the idea of getting into it with him just seemed like too much work.
Kyle had to admit to himself that Benny was really not a bad guy. He was probably the best person that Kyle knew. It was just that none of the friends he had made since starting college three years ago had a very high opinion of Benny.
They told Kyle all of the time that Benny smelled constantly of sweat and grease, because when he wasn’t working at the store he was working on various junk trucks that people brought to him to repair on the side. Benny Millett was one of the best shade tree mechanics in the Miami valley.
They thought that he dressed like a girl in all of those bright colors and Hawaiian shirts. Kyle had to admit that Benny could be an assault on the senses, but Benny had never done anything to him in all of the years that they had been friends. Even if the friendship was a little too one sided these days.
Damnit, it was shitty as hell to think of Benny like that. Benny Millett had been the guy who had probably saved his life in seventh grade. If it had not been for his intervention, Mikey Stoltz probably would have pounded him into a runny paste.
Kyle slid out from under the warm comforter of his bed and planted his feet on the cold floorboards of his room. A wave of nausea spread from the pit of his stomach to all of his extremities. He knew he only had moments before the contents of his guts were exposed for the entire world to see and smell.
He threw off the blanket and sprinted for the door to the bathroom that he shared with his sister Jennifer. Kyle had always been a good runner and had even lettered in track his senior year at West Carrolton High School. He grabbed the knob and turned it as he simultaneously slammed his shoulder against the door … nothing happened.
“What the fuck are you doing?” a pissed off female voice called from the other side of the door. Jennifer was in the bathroom and Kyle knew that he was screwed. When she was five years old, Jenny had decided that the bathroom was her own personal domain and she only allowed Kyle to continue to use it out of the goodness of her heart. No matter how many times he complained to his parents about this he was always treated with the attitude that since Jenny was a girl and he was a boy it was more important for her to have access to the their shared bathroom.
“Open the goddamn door!” Kyle yelled as he tried to hold back the vomit that he knew was coming. Now it was just a matter of when not if.
“You are just going to have to wait, Kye. I am putting on my makeup.” The prissy way that she said it made him want to choke the life out of her. She had been getting worse and worse over the last two years. She thought that since he was twenty two years old he should really think about getting a place of his own. That way she could have the bathroom all to herself and move into his bigger room. She’d been doing everything she could think of to subtlety convince him that his life would be better if he just moved out.
“Damnit, Jennifer, I have to get in there!” He was screaming now but the screams were only a hairs breath away from sobs, he knew it was already too late.
“Jesus, Kye, you’re so damn melodramatic …” she began but was cut off by what came next.
He tasted the mixture of acid and last night’s Taco Bell, and then the flood gates burst wide open and the deluge began. Hot liquid mixed with chunks of mostly digested food spewed forth and splattered against the bathroom door. Kyle’s proximity to the door guaranteed that a sizable portion of the flow rebounded back and coated him with a light glaze of internal stew. He dropped to his knees, further exposing himself to the mess, and continued to retch.
His long hair, which had only been pulled back in a ponytail, spilled forward and mixed with noxious concoction pooled on the floor.
Behind him an irate Oscar meowed.
Kyle heard the door on Jennifer’s side of the bathroom open quickly followed thirty seconds later with his own bedroom door opening. At least she had been smart enough to keep his bathroom door shut.