by R. A. Hakok
‘The AC-130 that’d been spotting for us earlier drops altitude and now tracer rounds from its mini guns light up the sky. Down on the line the tanks and the Bradleys have finally gotten in the game. A few moments later the Humvees and the Strykers join in with their chain guns and their fifty cals. The noise is deafening. Down on the highway it’s just carnage. I lay the rifle up. There’s no point; nothing could get through that. And for a second I think, They were right; this is where we’ll stop them. But then Ortiz taps me on the shoulder and points.’
He stops to take another hit from the thermos and I realize I’m leaning forward.
‘What did he see?’
He glances at the bottle of bourbon. I raise it to my lips and take another swig so he’ll get back to the story.
‘Remember what I told you about Atlanta, kid?’
I nod. ‘The trees.’
‘Right. Well, those trees weren’t just in front of us, they were all around. Sure, for a couple of blocks on either side of the highway it was mostly concrete. But pretty quickly the skyscrapers and the offices give way to regular neighborhoods and then the trees are back, spreading right out into the suburbs.’ He looks across the table. ‘We assumed because the furies were following the survivors that they’d stick to the interstate. But nobody thought to check with brother fury whether that was his plan. Turns out it wasn’t, because now they’re breaking cover on both sides.’
‘The Comanches pull back and head out to the sides and begin laying down fire. A few seconds later the AC-130 hauls off to join them. Down on the line they’re trying to move whatever of the armor they can around to face the flanks, but it’s chaos, and now there’s less fire going forward and the furies are getting through again. I jam another clip into the SR-25 and get back to work. It’s no good, though. The first of them hits the razor wire without even slowing. The ones behind immediately start climbing over, struggling and thrashing and tangling themselves up in the barbs. But the weight’s compressing the coils, and now others are clambering over the top. The first few make it through and crash headlong into the last of the arc lights and there’s that moment, where you know it’s all going to get decided.’
He lifts the thermos to his lips, like he’s about to take another sip, then decides against it and puts it back down.
‘Some of the Humvees have got their headlights pointed up the highway, so I can still make out a little of what’s going on. That virus may be infectious, but let me tell you son, nothing spreads faster than panic. The grunts had been trained to fire in short, controlled bursts but there’s little of that now. I see one kid, can’t have been much older’n you, step out from behind his sandbags, switch his M4 to auto and just open up into the wire. He’s empty in no more than a couple of seconds. They’re on him before he’s fumbled a fresh clip out of his flak vest.’
‘The line collapses pretty quickly after that. There’s just too many of them. The Warthog’s still circling but the fire from the AC-130’s more sporadic now, like it’s trying to conserve ammo. Then I see the Comanches banking around, heading back to base to reload. By the time they return it’ll be over. The furies are spilling out over the freeway guardrails, jumping down onto the streets below. I mean, you’ve seen how quick they move, right?’
I nod.
‘Where’d you run into yours? A hospital?’
I take another sip of the bourbon and shake my head.
‘Marv said we had to stay clear of the hospitals.’
‘Smart fella.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Well, I crank the scope ’till it bottoms out and then step up onto the ledge so I can fire directly down into them. But before I can get a shot off I hear a roar and when I look up there’s an F-16 coming in on afterburners. It drops down low as it approaches the highway and I know even before I see the bomb detach that it’s over. Somebody’s called it. The pilot’s already banking away and I don’t wait to see where it’ll hit, I just shout at Ortiz to take cover. I guess it must have been a bunker buster because a second later it’s like the ground’s turned to jello and the next thing I know the air’s sucked from my lungs and I feel the rifle ripped from my hands. The windows on the north side of the building blow out and a great plume of dust and dirt rises up into the sky like a geyser. The last thing I see before I’m hurled back from the edge is one of the Humvees being tossed through the air like a child’s toy.’
He reaches for the thermos and I raise the bourbon to my lips again.
‘I’m not sure how long I lay there, after, just staring up into the sky. I can’t hear a thing. Now and then a chopper passes overhead, but I guess Ortiz and me don’t look like a good bet because none of them are stopping. By the time I finally manage to haul myself up the blinking landing lights are almost all the way to the horizon and I don’t reckon any of them’ll be coming back. Ortiz is still out of it. I look over the edge; the streets below are swarming. I figure we’re not going anywhere till dawn, so I sit down to wait.’
‘My ears are still shot so it’s a good thing I’m facing east or I might not have seen the Chinook lifting off from CDC. I dig in my pack for a flare and then jump up on the ledge and start waving it above my head for all I’m worth. At first I don’t think it’s coming. But then finally it swings around and dips its nose in our direction.’
‘Only takes it a couple of minutes to reach us. The Chinook’s too big to land on the roof so the pilot holds it in a hover and drops the ramp at the back. I hoist Ortiz onto my shoulder. There’s a bunch of grunts inside waving at me to pass him up. I still can’t hear worth a damn so I’ve no idea what they’re saying, but then I see the look on this young red-haired kid’s face change. I turn around and there’s a couple of furies on the roof behind me. I guess I’ve attracted them, waving the flare around and hollering like an idiot. They’re already running at me so I heave Ortiz up. The SR-25 I was using earlier’s long gone but the ’Mag’s at my feet so I reach down for it. The elevation’s still set for a distance shot and there’s no time to dial it back so I just hold it low and squeeze. The gun rises up and when it drops again one of them’s disappeared but the other’s still coming. I figure I don’t have enough time to reload so I ditch the rifle and reach for my sidearm.’
‘And?’
The cigarette between his fingers has burned down to a butt. He drops it to the floor and crushes it under his boot.
‘Turns out I just wasn’t fast enough.’
*
‘WHAT HAPPENED?’
He pulls the throat of his parka back and turns his head so I can see the long, ugly scar that runs down one side of his neck.
‘Doc’s what happened. The Chinook had been sent to fetch her and whatever equipment they could salvage from her lab, bring her someplace where she could continue working on a cure. Truck and his boys were her escort. They were all for shooting me then and there but she said there was a chance, if we were quick. She burned the skin off where it had touched me. Then they stuck me in one of the plastic cages they’d taken from her lab, to see whether I’d turn. My lucky day I guess.’
He reaches for the thermos, glancing over at the bottle of bourbon I’m holding as he does it.
‘So where’d you run into yours, then, if it wasn’t in a hospital?’
‘A tunnel.’
He pauses, like he’s thinking about this.
‘Probably had to have been shielded for it to have survived the burst. Was it at that Eden place you and the other kids were holed up with Kane?’ But before I have a chance to agree he waves that possibility away. ‘Nope, can’t have been, not if it was just last year. You and Marv, coming and going all that time, you’d have run into it long before then.’
I’m not ready for the turn the conversation’s taken. I take another swig from the bottle while I work out what to say. Hicks seems okay, and he did save me from Truck and Weasel, but I hadn’t planned on telling him about Mount Weather. I rack my brains for another answer but my head�
�s fuggy from the liquor and for a long moment there’s nothing. At last something pops into my head and it doesn’t seem like anything better’s following on its heels so I seize it.
‘It was at a place called Culpeper.’
He takes a sip from his thermos and then works his jaw from side to side, like he’s figured there’s something not quite right with my story.
‘How’d you say you came down here again? On 81?’
Even as I’m nodding I realize Culpeper’s nowhere near I-81. It takes me a couple of seconds to stumble onto an excuse.
‘Yeah, but I took us off the highway looking for food and then we got lost in a snowstorm and ended up wandering around a bit.’
He squints at me a while, like he knows I’m not telling him the truth and he’s trying to work out whether to call me on it. In the end he must decide to let it go.
‘Well, it can happen. So how’d you get away from it?’
‘It chased me out into the light and I shot it.’ I’m anxious to move on from my lie so I stick to the short version. I figure he doesn’t need to know that I must have missed it a dozen or more times in the tunnel, and once more outside, when it was just lying there in the snow. Or that I was so afraid I peed myself in the process.
He raises the thermos again and looks at me, but I realize I can’t have any more bourbon. I hold the bottle up and take a false swig, just enough to wet my lips.
‘And the helicopter brought you to The Greenbrier?’
He shakes his head.
‘The Greenbrier wasn’t the plan, at least not at first. Doc was supposed to be headed for North Carolina.’
That was what I was supposed to be finding out from Hicks all along. With everything that had been going on in Atlanta I’d almost forgotten.
‘The bunker at Fearrington?’
He nods.
‘If you were thinking of checking it out I can save you the bother. Nothing for you there, kid.’
‘You’ve been inside?’
He shakes his head and reaches for the thermos again.
‘We landed but the place was locked down. None of the codes Doc had worked.’
‘Yeah, Kane changed them all, the day he brought us from the White House to Eden.’
As soon as it’s out I realize my mistake. Hicks’ flask is almost at his lips but when I mention the codes it stops in midair.
‘Your friend Marv tell you that too?’
I nod.
‘He didn’t happen to give you the new ones did he?’
I shake my head, perhaps a little too quickly. Crap. I really can’t be trusted with liquor. I ask him another question, to keep him from dwelling on the subject.
‘What’d it look like, from the outside?’
He stares at me for a moment before answering.
‘Can’t rightly say. I was lying at the bottom of a cage designed for something no bigger than a chimpanzee, pretty much out of it on the painkillers the Doc had given me. Ortiz saw it though; he’d come around by then. He told me later it was nothing special; just a guard station and a couple of concrete buildings. But then Doc said most of it was underground anyway. The silo was supposed to go down thirteen stories.’
‘And you never went back there, after?’
‘Why would we do that? We had no way in.’
I was expecting it, but still I’m a little disheartened.
‘Doc’s fallback was The Greenbrier. It was touch and go whether we’d even make it; we’d used a lot of our fuel getting out to Fearrington. Later when we checked the tanks for anything that might burn there was nothing. I reckon we must have landed on fumes.’
‘How’d you get in? Wasn’t it locked down too?’
‘That was our one piece of good fortune that night. Turns out someone was still inside. Young Private Kavanagh had been part of the guard detail that got posted there when they reactivated it. They got the evacuation order but somehow he got himself trapped inside. As soon as his squad stepped outside they got overrun. He said he saw it all on the monitors. Shook him up pretty bad, so bad he wouldn’t let us in at first. It was only when Doc explained she was working on a cure for the virus that he changed his mind.’
‘Is she close, to a cure I mean?’
‘She says she is. Not sure there’s anyone left who can call her on it, though.’
He takes another sip from the thermos and goes quiet for a long while, just staring into the hearth. The fire’s almost burned down and the tavern’s turning cold. I pull my parka around me.
‘Alright kid, time to hit the sack. Early start tomorrow.’
I get up, a little unsteadily, and make my way over to my backpack to get my sleeping bag. This hasn’t worked out how I’d hoped. I’ve wasted a whole day coming out with Hicks; Dr. Gilbey already knew as much about Fearrington as he did. I wonder why she pretended not to remember it? It might have been ten years ago, but it was supposed to be where she was going to continue her research. She must have expected to spend months, maybe even years there.
Surely you wouldn’t just forget something like that?
*
SHE’S WAKING UP!
He’s so excited he can barely contain himself. He’s been watching her since the mean soldier brought her down earlier. For a long time she just lay there, a dark shape curled up on the floor of the cage, and at first he wasn't even sure she was breathing. But he just saw her move, he’s sure of it.
He creeps forward until his face is only inches from the bars, even though he knows this is against the rules. They put her in the cage next to 98’s, so she’s almost directly opposite. It looks like she’s wearing the same dark overalls he is, which must mean...
There! She just moved again! Without thinking he presses closer to the bars. He would jump with excitement if he could, but the cage is too low and all he can manage is a small shuffling dance. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to be still. He must be calm now. If she’s like he was when he first arrived she’ll be frightened. She won’t know where she is or what she’s doing down here in the darkness.
She props herself up on one elbow and shakes her head, as if she’s trying to clear it. They’ve shaved her hair. He runs his hands over his own shorn scalp, remembering how that had felt when he had first woken up.
She opens her eyes and slowly looks around. He knows she won’t be able to see much, not yet, but nevertheless he shrinks back a little further as her eyes glide over his cage. He doesn’t want to scare her, the way 98 had frightened him when he had first seen what she looked like. But then she looks right at him and his heart leaps with joy. Her eyes are still normal. She will probably be here for a long time.
Her hands reach forward and grasp the bars of the cage and for a moment she explores them, testing the thickness of the plastic, its strength. Her fingers move to the edges and she finds the hinges and then she searches on the opposite side for the release. She’s wasting her time of course. He knows where the catch is, but there’s no way it can be reached from the inside.
She must figure that out because after a while she gives up and instead grips the bars with both hands and pulls. When that doesn’t work she braces herself against the sides and starts kicking. That won’t do any good either; the plastic’s strong. He saw everything that 98 did to the cage in the end and still it held. But she’s making a lot of noise and now he’s worried; if she keeps this up the mean soldier will come down, and then there’ll be trouble. He creeps to the front of the cage and tries to hush her, just like 98 did with him when he first arrived. It takes her a moment to notice but then she stops and looks right at him. He knows she probably can’t see him but he retreats from the bars anyway.
‘Who’s there?’
That’s a difficult question when you’re not sure of your own name. He thinks about it for a moment and then figures Johnny 99 will do for now.
She repeats the name, like she’s testing the sound of it.
‘Well Johnny, hello. I’m Mags. Do you know wher
e I am?’
That question is difficult too, so instead of answering he tells her she needs to be quiet. But she doesn’t seem to get it, because she just asks more questions. As quickly as he can he explains that making noise isn’t allowed; even talking like this is bad. She must go to the back of her cage and be still, or the soldier will come. That finally seems to work, because for a moment she says nothing.
‘So the soldier comes if I make noise?’
He nods. Yes, yes. At last she’s getting it. But then she just starts kicking the bars again and shouting, and she won’t stop no matter how much he pleads with her. Soon he hears footsteps on the stairs outside and he knows it’s too late now. He scurries to the back of his cage, presses himself into the corner and starts counting. He must have missed the first few steps because of the racket the girl’s making; he only gets as far as eighty when they stop, and then the door at the end of the room opens with a soft groan.
He tells himself it might be okay. Maybe the mean soldier won’t do anything to her this time. She’s new; she couldn’t be expected to know about the rules yet. He hears the sound of his boots on the concrete, growing louder as he marches towards them between the cages. The beam from his flashlight bounces ahead of him, getting stronger with each step. Moments later grubby fatigues appear in front of his cage, the bottoms tucked into a pair of large boots. He’s got the stick; he’s holding it behind his back. Johnny 99 can see the two metal prongs that protrude from the end of the black plastic. The girl mustn’t have noticed it yet because she doesn’t move away. She just looks up at him.
‘Corporal Truckle. What am I doing in here?’
The mean soldier doesn’t say anything. He just pushes the stick through the bars. There’s a flash of blue light and the girl cries out once but doesn’t let go. Her hands grip the plastic tighter as the muscles in her arms spasm. Johnny 99 covers his head with his hands so he won’t have to see. Surely the soldier will stop soon. But he keeps jamming the stick through the bars. Soon the air smells like it’s burning.