by JT Sawyer
“She is going to need to rest for a few weeks if that leg muscle is to recover properly,” said Pavel in his slight Russian accent.
“Well, this island at least seems bigger than the others we’ve tried. Tomorrow we’ll see what we can harvest in terms of the ‘two Cs’: coconuts and critters,” said Matias, who was carving the end of a set of wooden snare components.
“We’re not alone here,” said Carlie. “Just before Amy was injured, I saw a single set of footprints along the beach near our canoe.”
“Another pus brain?” said Jared.
“No, these were too rhythmic to be anything other than human. The tracks went north along the shoreline.”
Shane looked at Matias. “Looks like we got some mantracking work to do at sunrise.”
“I’ll take the first watch tonight,” said Carlie, pulling out her machete and pistol. She removed the magazine and stared at the last two rounds that were left as if hoping more had magically re-appeared since their last encounter with zombies a few days earlier. She shoved the magazine back in place and felt a raindrop land on her face as dark clouds thickened and lighting shone in the distance. The raucous monkeys in the treetops stopped chattering as the wind ruffled the canopy. Carlie lay down, her bony shoulder blades pressing into the fine sand. She thought about Amy and knew that her survival now was about simple mathematics. The clock was ticking not only on the prospect of finding a cure for the global pandemic but on the survival of their small band trying to wrest a living from their unforgiving environment. The longer they struggled under these precarious conditions, the greater their chances of succumbing to starvation, zombies, or further injury. They had to get back to the mainland, wherever that was, no matter how difficult the journey.
Chapter 3
Payette, Idaho, North of Boise, One Day after Departing White Sands Military Base
Eliza looked out from the two-story window of the high school to the rubble-strewn streets below. In the distance she could barely discern the still-smoldering wreckage of Air Force One, its shattered blue-and-white fuselage spread along the interstate followed by at least a mile of debris. She thought their harrowing escape from White Sands in New Mexico was horrific but those ghastly images had been pushed aside in the aftermath of their plane crash.
She never understood the damage that could be inflicted by a severe thunderstorm of the scale that overtook them. She was used to being safely tucked away in a private room while waiting for another dull flight to be over. The pilots called the storm a supercell that had a squall line a hundred miles long with winds exceeding 80 mph. With their lack of intel from weather satellites and ground towers, they headed right into the maelstrom. Under normal conditions, the pilots would have diverted to another airport to ride out the storm. In their case, there weren’t any safe havens below or available makeshift landing strips in the predominantly mountainous region. Instead, the pilots dropped to a lower elevation in the hopes of skirting beyond the worst of it. At first Eliza thought they had eluded the reach of the powerful tempest. After her father reassured her, as he’d done countless times in her childhood, she put her headphones back on and continued listening to music in his private office. She didn’t know that the pilots were frantically sending out a distress signal and poring over their inflight data to locate a potential highway below where they could set down. She didn’t know that Agent Willis was busy checking the emergency gear or that General Adams was hastily securing cargo door locks. Nor did she know that Doctor Efron had just stowed his research notes and was on his way back up to the front of the plane when a lightning bolt struck the right engine, the shockwave in the main cabin shooting an empty carafe of water from a nearby table with such force that Efron was dead upon collapsing to the green-carpeted floor.
But as the overhead emergency lights began flashing red in her room and the plane precipitously veered to the left with the sound of screeching steel, the smell of black smoke in her nose and the pulsing of excruciating G-forces upon her face, she knew that her brief calm was about to be shredded by forces beyond what even her father could control.
In the haze of memory after they crash-landed among the jumble of abandoned vehicles on the interstate, she vaguely recalled Willis pulling her out of the crumpled cabin as General Adams hobbled alongside her gravely wounded father, their forms backlit by the flaming shell of the once magnificent airborne symbol of her father’s presidency. With her vision foggy from the impact, she struggled to piece together the images of Willis and Adams helping carry her injured father through the burnt-out city streets, battling zombies along the way until they arrived at the high school.
Standing in the drafty gymnasium, she lowered her head and fought back the terror wrestling for control of her soul. Then looked at her arms which were crisscrossed with tiny lacerations. Her body ached in every joint and along every muscle striation. She felt like she had been dragged across a field of broken glass and then beaten with a shovel.
Why couldn’t they have just made it to Fort Lewis? They would all be safe now and she wouldn’t have the gnawing uncertainty of her father’s fate. Fort Lewis was her bastion of hope after the decimation of White Sands from the swift-moving viral outbreak. Now, even that base in Washington seemed light-years away but she knew that making it there was imperative given it was one of the last intact military facilities left in the western U.S. Eliza glanced over to her father who was asleep on a pile of blue wrestling mats in the corner, his button-down shirt partially open, revealing a thick layer of gauze.
Eliza pried herself away from the window and walked over to where Willis and Adams were sitting cross-legged on the floor. A thick bandanna was wrapped around the general’s forehead to cover a deep laceration while Willis was still scraped up from their narrow escape from White Sands. Adams was poring over hand-drawn maps as they discussed options while Willis was doing an inventory of the go-bag he had removed from the plane prior to bailing out.
“We’ve got two MP-7 rifles, two Sig-Sauer pistols, seven loaded mags for each, extended trauma kit with IVs, two flashlights, and two tactical blades. What we don’t have is food and water. Secret Service protocols were always such that we only had to provide for running and gunning as reinforcements would be on the way within the hour.”
“How long before a rescue team is dispatched to our location?” said Eliza, who had knelt down beside the two men. “Will there even be a rescue team coming, given the depleted capabilities of the military?”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” said Adams. “From what the sec-def at Lewis told me prior to us departing White Sands, they had a lot of their SF teams already deployed gathering resources and sweeping through other military bases for supplies.” Adams exhaled, tilting his head back. “They probably got the SOS the pilots sent and will have a fix on the president’s subdermal transponder but we may be holed up here for a while until they can pool resources to extract us following the weather clearing.”
“My sub-dermal GPS tracker is probably offline,” said Willis, who looked down at the thick gauze swaddling his forearm where he had sustained an impact injury upon landing. “Near as I can tell, we are about 35 miles northwest of Boise, a few miles from Highway 95. We need to stay close to the wreckage so the search teams have an easier time finding us in the event that the president’s transponder isn’t functioning or he…” Willis paused, looking at Huntington and then back at Eliza. “I’m doing everything I can to ease his pain and keep him stable, Eliza, but his injuries are too severe to treat here for very long.”
“I know…I know,” she said, lowering her head briefly and taking in a deep breath.
“Right now, our immediate needs are procuring some fresh water and food as the supplies we scrounged up in this building are nearly gone,” said Adams. “The president definitely needs to be adequately hydrated as do the rest of us.”
“We passed that tiny subdivision of new homes a few blocks from here on the way in. Those looked to b
e in OK shape,” said Willis. “If we head down the fire escape we used to get in here, then we should be able to bypass most of the tangos. The county sign on the highway indicated this was a town of only 7400 so we shouldn’t have too many of those things running around here.”
“Alright, I’ll go with you to provide backup,” said Adams, reaching forward for an MP-7 then looking at Eliza. “You and your father will be safe in here. Just make sure the exit door we depart from locks behind us. That’s a steel-reinforced barrier that will keep out those things.” He grabbed a pistol and handed it to her, showing her how to manipulate the safety. “But just in case.”
****
After the two men departed, Eliza sat down beside her father. His wheezy breathing was the only sound and it echoed throughout the spacious gymnasium.
His internal injuries were significant and the concussion he had suffered made him lapse in and out of consciousness throughout the night. As she sat there, looking down at the pistol, she felt his hand slide over the top of her forearm. “My daughter—my lovely daughter,” he said in between grated exhalations. “I remember when you first left for college. How I thought I wouldn’t see you again for a long time because you were angry with me for the public life I’d forced you to endure.”
She leaned over next to him, brushing his gray hair back away from his forehead. “Shh…you need to rest, Dad. Besides, I could never be mad at you for being the man you are. You’re a great leader. It was the media pundits I couldn’t stand, never you.”
“You have your mother’s moral compass. She’ll be glad to see you again when we can get you back east to her location one of these days.”
“For right now, we just need to get you back to Fort Lewis. That shouldn’t be too long.”
“It will be for me,” he said, trying to sit up, firmly gripping her forearm. “If I don’t make it, you have to get the laptop back to Fort Lewis. It contains leads on the virus—a research facility in Alaska that may hold some crucial answers.”
“What about Carlie and her team—where are they?”
“Cuba—somewhere in Cuba, but that’s all I know. They must have made it out by now. They’re probably back at Fort Lewis after getting the re-route signal from the emergency beacon at White Sands. From what you’ve told me about her, she’s probably busting some helicopter pilot’s chops and prepping her team to come find you.”
“I don’t want to be so dependent on everyone to help me. Once we’re out of here, I want to learn to take care of myself.”
“I’ll see to it that Willis shows you some of his tradecraft,” he said as his chest spasmed and he coughed uncontrollably. Foamy, bright red blood issued forth from his lip as he gurgled out a breath.
Eliza knew that the color and consistency of the blood indicated bleeding in the lungs, probably connected with his broken ribs. Huntington shivered and scrunched into a fetal position while Eliza pulled the wool blanket up around his shoulders.
He pulled on her arm, motioning her to come closer. “Promise me that you won’t die here in this wasteland—that you’ll always keep fighting and will do whatever it takes to get back.”
Eliza nodded her head. Her eyes welled up with tears as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close and trying to contain the growing fear starting to punch through her chest.
“Get yourself, the others, and the laptop back to Fort Lewis,” he said, his voice shrinking to a whisper. “You can do this, Eliza. You are so strong. Remember how strong you are…remember…” His cheeks tightened and his gurgling voice trembled as he slumped into her, the raspy sound of his breathing gone.
Eliza squeezed his shoulders. “Daddy, don’t go. You have to come with me….you have to come with me.” Her chin quivered uncontrollably. She leaned down and ran her fingers through his hair while looking into his glassy eyes. Then she pulled his head in close to her side, clutching him firmly with both hands. A painful tightness in her throat welled up as wave after consuming wave of sobs sprang forth from deep inside her, the anguish filling every inch of the cavernous room.
Chapter 4
Fort Lewis Military Base, Nine Miles Southwest of Tacoma, Washington
“Where are we at with the search efforts for the president?” said Conrad Lavine, the Secretary of Defense who had overseen operations at Fort Lewis since the outbreak began.
Sergeant Major Ron Duncan pulled himself away from the wall monitor that showed a map of the western United States. “The same as yesterday when we got the distress signal from the Secret Service agent after they crash-landed during the storm. That would place them right about here,” he said, pointing to a region north of Boise, Idaho.
Duncan was standing in the main server room which was lined with a dozen computer monitors on the walls and as many intel analysts buzzing between the different consoles, collating data that was then placed up on the large monitor in the center of the room. Various charts and spreadsheets showed a breakdown of prominent cities around the western U.S. indicating existing populations along with mortality rates.
“If we had reliable satellite feed, we could’ve pinpointed their current location better. As of last night, I had a fix on the president’s subdermal tracking beacon so we know he’s alive but they may have been forced to move from the crash site. Until this storm clears and we can get better reception, we’re sitting with our hands under our asses.”
The sec-def smirked slightly, shooting a look of disappointment at Duncan. He didn’t particularly like the sgt. major or men like him in the Special Forces even if they were highly efficient at their jobs. He looked at Duncan as a blunt instrument which, in another reality before the pandemic, he would have wielded at his discretion and without regard for the wellbeing of the man, or organic asset, as he often called soldiers during briefings to his Pentagon underlings. Now Duncan felt it was alright to swear in front of him and shrug off formalities, which grated on him even further. Still, he needed the operator as he was the most capable and experienced field commander at the base, which was home to the two remaining units of the 1st Special Forces and a smattering of the 7th Infantry Division. It was the largest intact military base in the western U.S. with 931 personnel and it provided direct support for the few surviving military outposts dotting the tristate border region of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.
With the uncertainty of locating President Huntington growing thinner with each passing day and the early demise of the vice-president, the speaker of the house and other members of Congress, Lavine surmised that he would now be the supreme leader of what was left of this country and had already prepared the speech he would give if that should befall him.
In the early days of the pandemic, he had no desire to replace the president and he preferred to stay in the shadows conducting his business. Still, he had no love for Huntington, whose weak international policies he had openly challenged on more than one occasion. Lavine knew that he could prove himself a more capable leader, especially in this new world that favored raw force over adherence to dogmatic thinking and antiquated policies.
“Sir, there’s some new intel that came in from one of our jeep convoys that has just returned from southeast Washington,” said Duncan. “They say there’s a group of civis there holed up at the prison.”
“Isn’t that a military prison there?”
“That’s right. It was in the city of Walla Walla. I was going to walk down to C-Wing and talk with the convoy leader about it.”
“Very good. Keep me posted. I will be in a meeting for the next hour with the virology staff to see how things are coming with their research on the pandemic. Since Doctor Efron was on board Air Force One and is KIA according to the last transmission from the pilot, we’re even further in the dark on this virus than before.” Lavine shook his head. Christ, did it have to be Efron that got an early ticket to the next world and not one of the others on that plane?
Before both men turned to leave, a red blip appeared on the main monitor. Duncan sta
red at the screen as the satellite imagery began refining the search grid until a circle formed around an area northwest of Boise. The red blip was in the middle of the circle. As it continued to flash, two words appeared underneath: Subject Deceased.
The bustle of activity in the room abruptly ceased as everyone came to a standstill and stared at the words. Lavine staggered back and slumped into a chair, holding his head in his hands. Duncan tapped on the keyboard and kept trying to refocus the search area image, muttering, “Goddammit, he can’t be dead. What the fuck is wrong with this equipment?”
As the image kept fading, Duncan kept hitting the keypad harder and swearing. Finally he stood up and put his hands on his hips and began pacing along the front of the room.
“I’ll gather my team and fly down there once this storm clears. Perhaps the others survived.”
Lavine stood up, rubbing his temples with his fingertips like he was trying to erase a smudge. “No, we can’t spare the manpower or any helos.”
“Pardon me, sir, but there could be survivors that made it out of Air Force One.”
“That’s over five hundred miles away and we’ve lost too many critical assets already. I’m not going to risk weakening our existing personnel infrastructure here by sending you and your men out there for what will most likely be a body recovery op.”
The other staff kept dividing their looks between the two men while glancing intermittently at the two words still flashing on the screen. Duncan briskly walked over to the desk by Lavine and stood before him, whispering towards his left side, “Even if this were you and your cabinet, I’d still sift through the rubble to see if anyone was alive because we don’t leave our people behind.”