No Light Beyond

by L. Douglas Hogan

  General Benjamin Chance was the commanding officer of NORAD and had been since his installment three years prior to the Flash. The CDC reported their findings directly to him. Although he was unaware of Dr. Carter’s transgressions against NORAD, he was acutely aware of the impending danger of having the infected confined at Cheyenne. He neither liked it nor condoned it, but found the data provided to him by Dr. Carter to be substantial.

  After the sudden outbreak of the fever, he was busy investigating the cause, especially since he had previously been briefed that the fever was a blood-borne pathogen. Dr. Carter had concealed his findings from the rest of the team, including his commanding officer, Dr. Temper Evans, so when members of the US military became infected with the contagion, General Chance placed a team of investigators on the case.

  “At what rate is this thing spreading east?” he asked one of his intelligence officers. “Give me a ballpark figure to work with.”

  “Sir, it’s extremely difficult to ascertain the rate of infection because we’re not getting real-time reports. If we had an operational power grid across the US, I might have some data for you.”

  “Let’s go off what we know, Lieutenant, even if it’s guesswork.”

  “I’d say we’re looking at a total ninety-nine percentile rate of infection within a year’s time. I base that off the reports we’ve received thus far, and we’re only a year into the first reporting, that we know of.”

  “That’s a pretty grim outlook, LT.”

  “I know, sir, very grim.”

  “When was last contact with USAMRIID?”

  The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, or USAMRIID (pronounced you-Sam-rid), located at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was the US Department of Defense’s only biosafety level 4 laboratory equipped to study and manage fatal diseases for which there was no apparent and viable cure or vaccine.

  “Two days ago, sir.”

  “Make contact with them so they know we’re still kicking. We need more frequent updates, Lieutenant. We may be the only surviving community on this side of the Midwestern states. If something goes wrong here, we’ll need to call on them for assistance.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The general started to walk away but remembered he needed to say one more thing. “And, Lieutenant… remember, our outbreak is still classified. The last thing we need is our eastern friends rejecting our call for assistance.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Goodnight, Lieutenant.”

  Haven

  Romeo had a pistol pressed against Mason’s head, and the preacher was again shackled to him.

  “Climb,” Romeo said, pushing him forward with the tip of his pistol. A ladder had been erected against the wall, and Romeo intended to push Mason over the top of the wall into the crowd of Ravagers below. Mason knew he was feeling a little intimidated by having a pistol pointed at his head, so he had to calm himself before he did the unthinkable. Purposefully lowering himself into a pit of Ravagers at gunpoint wasn’t his idea of calm. He knew that if he failed at calming himself, he would become a casualty.

  As he climbed the ladder, he convinced himself that Romeo had no intention of shooting him. His intentions were to watch him be eaten alive by the horde of Ravagers below. Romeo had a man climbing the ladder behind him, being careful to keep his pistol pointed at Mason. Once his prisoner reached the top, Mason lifted his first leg over the wall and straddled it, looking down into the courtyard. He didn’t see any Ravagers, so he grabbed the rope and prepared to make his descent, but the goon that had him at gunpoint pushed him over the wall.

  Mason fell twenty-five feet and landed on his side with a huge thud. He was left there gasping for air. The fall knocked the wind out of him, and he was having a hard time resuming his normal breathing pattern. Realizing he couldn’t breathe, he began to panic. He looked around and still didn’t see any Ravagers, but he knew he would soon see them if he couldn’t regulate his breathing.

  Suddenly in the background, just around the corner of a building, Mason heard a Ravager scream. He backed up to the wall to prevent the wind from carrying his scent through the courtyard. When he did, he began to breathe. He calmed himself just as the Ravager ran around the corner and in his direction.

  The man on the wall scooted over and made room for Romeo and the preacher, who had been temporarily disconnected for the trip up the ladder. Soon, all three of them were sitting on the wall, only they weren’t witnessing what they had hoped for. The Ravager was standing over Mason, completely ignoring him.

  “Impossible,” Romeo said. “Let me see that gun,” he said to the goon.

  The goon handed his pistol to Romeo, who in turn pushed him over the edge. The man let out a cry for help, and the Ravager attacked him violently, biting him on the neck and chewing through the carotid artery, releasing several jets of blood that shot fifteen to twenty feet.

  “I don’t understand,” Romeo said, looking at the preacher. “How is this possible?”

  The preacher didn’t answer, as was customary.

  Romeo looked back over the other side of the wall and called down to the others, “Go grab that green-eyed angel that I told you to leave alone and bring her to me.”

  The men ran off, and Romeo called down to Mason, “Don’t try anything stupid, miracle man. We have your girl, and if you don’t do exactly what I tell you to do, she’ll die.”

  Mason looked up at Romeo and responded, “If you lay a finger on her, I’ll see to it personally that you turn.”

  “Big words for a man about to die. Listen to me carefully; you’re going to make your way into Haven and negotiate with the curator until he’s willing to surrender. When you’re done, return to me, and I’ll let your pretty woman go free, unharmed.”

  Reentering Haven wasn’t exactly on Mason’s bucket list. He had barely survived his last encounter and was sure the Colonel would kill him on sight.

  “The man that runs this place would sooner see me dead than negotiate with me.”

  “Then you had better be on your game, miracle man. Just tell him who you’re representing. Tell him Romeo is waiting for his response.”

  Mason let out a sigh and looked north. His mind was trying to spin a strategy, but he didn’t have any thread. Think, Mason, think, he thought. He was drawing a blank. He figured something might come to him if he just started walking. He needed something to present itself, and it wasn’t going to happen if he just continued to lie there.

  Mason picked himself up and started walking north, deeper into the courtyard and into the mammoth facility grounds. As he reached the end of the first building, where he believed the Ravager had come from, he could see that there were plenty more Ravagers off in the distance scattered here and there. Straight ahead, there was a huge smokestack that lifted high above everything except for the water tower that pierced the sky to the west of it. There was a road that ran straight through the entire complex from the west wall to the east wall.

  He thought to himself that if he just started walking that something would come to mind; maybe he would see a building that would remind him of his previous and brief tour of the facility. He needed to see a building he recognized so that he could make contact with the Colonel.

  I guess I’ll start with the water tower and catch a bird’s-eye view of the place , he thought. As he turned to head north, he saw the water tower was occupied by a man with a rifle and a set of binoculars hanging from his neck.

  The man that was working the tower was a member of the Order. He saw Romeo sitting on the west wall and wondered why he had pushed Mason down and why Mason was approaching his location. The man waited for the stranger then called down.

  “Stop right there, stranger.”

  There were at least two Ravagers not twenty feet from the stranger. The sight confused the tower guard. “Are you related to the preacher?” he yelled down.

  “I am. He’s my brother.”

  “Are you a preacher, too?”


  “Uh, not exactly,” Mason said.

  “How is it you’re able to walk among them undetected?”

  “I don’t know. Momma always said we were special.”

  “Why did Romeo push you over the wall?”

  “He wants me to negotiate with the leader of this place, but I don’t know where I’m going, so I was wondering if I could come up there and catch a view. I’ve been here once before, and I was hoping to see something that I recognized. I think that’s a good start.”

  “Come on up. You can use my binos,” he said.

  Mason began his ascent up the water tower. It seemed like an hour of climbing, especially after such a nasty fall. His rib was hurting really bad, and every time he took a deep breath, it got worse. I think I broke something, he thought.

  When he reached the top, the man extended him a hand to help him over the rail.

  “Is that guy your boss?” Mason asked.

  “Who, Romeo or Sanders?”

  “Romeo.”

  “Yeah, I work for him. I wouldn’t have worked for a guy like that before the Flash. Times have changed, haven’t they?”

  “You’ve got that right,” Mason said as he accepted the binos. He stood tall and held the binoculars to his face and scanned all around the facility grounds. He tracked the main road from where he’d entered to the east gate where he’d rammed the dump truck into the perimeter, then back again. It was on his second look that he saw the building he recognized as the one where he was separated from Shemika and Lydia. From there, he traced his steps backwards to the building he was first taken to, the place they called the Colonel’s Court. When Mason had found his way, he kept scanning the layout of the land until he found something he could exploit.

  “Tell me, mister…”

  “Broy, my name’s James Broy.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Broy, how would you like it if I got you down from here?” he asked the man as he continued to look through the binoculars. He had conceived a plan that involved moderate risk, but to make it work, he would need an assistant. He’d found at least two key points of advantage. As the man started talking, Mason opened his journal and sketched out a map of the facility grounds.

  The man said, “I haven’t eaten since we got here. So, yeah, I would like to get down. Can you lead me like the preacher leads Romeo?”

  “I can and I will, but I’m going to need your gun.”

  “I don’t know… that seems awfully risky for me.”

  “James, if I wanted you dead, I’d just leave you here, right?”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  Mason finished his sketch and then studied the man and asked, “Do you have a handkerchief?”

  “No.”

  “Then take your shirt off and wrap it around your eyes.”

  “What good’s that gonna do?” he asked.

  “Do you want down, or do you want to argue with me?”

  The man took his shirt off and tied it around his eyes.

  “Give me that rifle and do your best to follow me; stay close,” he said as he climbed over the rail and back down the ladder. Mason led the man to the administration building, where he had seen a truck parked with a huge chlorine dioxide tank in the bed of it that had been parked square with the exterior wall. From their position, he could easily see more than a dozen Ravagers.

  Mason knocked on the administration office door. “Colonel, it’s Mason Loss. Remember me? I’m the man that choked you and escaped your little prison.”

  James was standing silently by, listening to every word Mason said.

  “Hello?” Mason said, knocking on the door again. There was no answer.

  “Do you trust me?” Mason asked James.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really,” Mason said, yanking the handkerchief off the face of the man. Seeing that he was on the ground surrounded by Fleshers stirred him into a panic. The Fleshers let out their screams at various intervals. “Quick now, climb up the truck and get on the building top. Hurry before they eat you,” he said, pushing James towards the truck.

  James climbed as fast as he could up the truck and onto the administration building. The Fleshers were coming from all over the facility grounds and were flooding the courtyard that surrounded the building. Mason was the lone human standing in the midst of them. He could smell their decomposing flesh and it nearly snuffed the oxygen out of the air.

  “I know you’re in there, Colonel,” Mason said. “You’ve left me no choice but to play hardball. You’re completely surrounded by Fleshers.”

  Finally, the Colonel approached and stood by the window, peering out of it into Mason’s eyes.

  “Can you hear me, Mason?”

  “I hear you, Colonel. What’s your next move?”

  “I don’t need to make a move, Mason. I’m safe and secure in here. We have stores of food. We prepared for things like this.”

  What the Colonel wasn’t telling Mason was that the entire facility was interconnected beneath the ground by a system of tunnels.

  “Did you know that there’s a tank just outside your building that’s labeled ‘chlorine dioxide’? The container has two big red combustible and explosive symbols on the side of it. I have a rifle, and my next move is to blow a hole in the side of your little building. All we need to do to avoid this is to work out an agreement that ends with Romeo in charge.”

  Sanders stopped to think for a moment. His mind wasn’t able to reconcile the fact that Mason appeared to be working for the Order, so he decided to throw out a blanket statement to see where it took things. “I didn’t take you for the kind of man that worked for the Order, Mason. I offered you so much more. What is it? What did they offer you that I didn’t? I have your daughter.”

  Mason was taken aback by the Colonel’s last statement, I have your daughter. It kept rolling around in Mason’s head like a marble in a wineglass until it finally settled in its place. When it did, he asked for confirmation. “What did you just say?”

  It was Mason’s voice that scared the Colonel, not the siege or the horde of Fleshers, but a tone that resounded in Mason’s question, What did you just say?

  “I said we have your daughter,” the Colonel answered, lying to Mason to save his hide.

  “Where is she?”

  Mason’s tone changed along with his entire countenance. Even though the Colonel barely knew Mason, he knew enough about people and consequence to formulate a response that he hoped would sate the beast standing outside the building in which he was hiding. “She’s in the vocational school.”

  The horde of Fleshers were beginning to behave differently as Mason’s mood changed from a calm demeanor to anger. The Colonel could see that the Fleshers were turning their attention toward Mason, who started slowly walking backwards through the crowd of Fleshers. He realized they were turning with him as he moved through. He calmed himself, regaining his composure; all the while, he had his rifle held in the air over his head.

  The Colonel began to yell from inside the administration office, “What are you doing?” but Mason could no longer hear him. He was too far away, and the distance became a great chasm. Mason pointed his rifle at the chlorine dioxide tank.

  “What are you doing?” James cried out from the rooftop. “You’ll kill me, too.”

  Mason seemed unfazed by the man’s plea. All he could think about was Lydia and the promise he’d previously made to the Colonel that he was going to kill him.

  “He said that he has your daughter. I have a daughter, too. Please don’t do this. She needs me, mister.”

  Mason placed his finger on the trigger and aimed squarely at the bright white tank that would explode, blasting a hole in the side of the wall, allowing the horde to infiltrate the building and eat the Colonel, finally ridding him of the twisted curator. At the last moment, before he pulled the trigger to the point where it would release the firing pin, Mason lowered his rifle. It wasn’t the man’s comments that caused him to give in, or the thought of
more carnage, but in the void and coldness of Mason’s mind, there was a warm spot that kindled for a woman. Shemika was being held captive, and if Mason wanted to save her, he knew he had to pull it together and maintain his focus.

  For now, Lydia was his objective. She was the sole reason he had left the Reservation and traveled to this point. All the killing, the questions and answers, all seemed to lead to this point, to the memory Mason had buried that was resurfacing of him and the preacher standing in the street at gunpoint.

  “It’ll be okay. Your daughter’s close. Do not be afraid. Be strong and of good courage,” the preacher had told him.

  “Lydia,” Mason said to himself.

  The man on the roof was still pleading with Mason, who had tuned him out long ago. Mason looked at him, now back to his senses, and heard him say, “I can help you get your daughter back, mister. Please, let me live to see mine again.”

  “The vocational school,” Mason said out loud. “I’ve got to find the school.” Mason left on foot to find the building that housed Lydia. He wasn’t about to help James down off the roof, not at this critical time. All assets need to stay where they are for now, he thought.

  Bringing James down from the roof meant solving a new dilemma, like how to eradicate all the Fleshers and keep James calm as they moved along the grounds of the courtyard to their destination. After that, he would have to worry about what to do with him once he had Lydia. Then it dawned on him that he could use James as a distraction to save his daughter, but no. No, he was going to use his second point of advantage for that.

  When he had been looking through the binoculars from atop the water tower, Mason had spotted the chlorine dioxide tank and a man stranded on the east gate. Like every other person exposed to the Ravagers, Mason was new and having to adapt to survive. Where Mason excelled was in his way of doing it.

  Mason was a combat veteran and already had a mindset for combat adaptation. Urban warfare presented an ever-changing environment and a need to improvise and adapt to new situations as they presented themselves.