Code Frostbite (STORM Book 1)

by John Darling

  “How can I trust him now? He lied to me!”

  Alexei snapped and it immediately made me angry.

  “Hey don’t get mad at me for suggesting something. At least you can call your Dad! And at least you knew what S.T.O.R.M. was about! This shit is all new to me and I didn’t find out anything until my Dad was in the ground!”

  Alexei backed down as I felt my face turn red. I didn’t usually lash out at people but this had just hit a nerve. Mostly because I really miss my dad. Not a day went by where I don’t think about him, and how I wished that he was still alive.

  “I’m sorry, Trevor. That was unfair of me to say. Forgive me.”

  I accepted Alexei’s apology and cooled off. Alexei explained that he was going to call his dad once he reached land again. Apparently, he was undercover on a ship somewhere and could only call Alexei when he was in port. Alexei also mentioned that he hadn’t known anything about his Dad’s real career since the servers only had electronic copies of the mission reports from 2002 up until now.

  I bent down and began glancing through some of the other files. Not all of them were about Alexei’s dad. There are several files with other people’s names on them. One name I’d seen several times now is Natalie Cross. Apparently, she was the first woman to make it onto the Black Gang and had been given several awards for various missions she had accomplished. I glanced over a few of them when all of the sudden, a wrinkled, tan envelope caught my eye. It was a much different shade from all of the other documents and I picked it up. I held up the paper and showed it to Alexei.

  “What is that?”

  I brushed some dust and dirt particles off of the envelope, undid the brass latch at the top and slowly took out its contents. These files must have been in there for a long time. My eyes began examining the document; there was a strange logo at the top of the page and a date.

  “Oh. My. God. Trevor, this is from World War Two…”

  Alexei sat down in his chair as I read the fancy writing out loud.

  “December 3rd, 1944.

  “Dear Admiral Bradley, Central Command has either neglected or simply refused to respond to any of my prior communications. I am writing to you in urgent distress and fear for what may happen. I do NOT believe that our organization’s leaders have realized the real gravity of the situation. My brother is still undercover behind enemy lines. I received a short telegram from him six weeks ago and if what he says is true, then we need to act fast. We need to send in a team now before this said “army of sickness” is used against another nation, or even us. According to my brother, the Fuhrer has been planning this for months and plans on striking soon. Please acknowledge and send in help. I know our resources and manpower are running low, however, we can’t be caught off guard if something catastrophic really does happen. Lives of innocent civilians are on the line, including my brother’s. May I remind you that it was Central Command’s idea to send him in twenty-five months ago, not his nor mine. If nothing is done, I will be forced to find a team of my own and deploy myself. You have ten days to reply before I resign and take action. I will not be turning my back on my brother or the innocent civilians that we swore to protect. I eagerly await your reply. Sincerely, LTJG Daniel Sanders.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think for the time being. It was the middle of the night and we had to be up in a few hours but there was no way I could sleep now. I figured S.T.O.R.M. had been around since the 1990s, maybe the 1980s, but why was this letter from WWII in here? What had been going on that required us to send people undercover? Zombies couldn’t have started the war… right? I asked Alexei if he knew anything about this, or zombies existing back then. He didn’t and began searching the servers on his computer for any information regarding the letter.

  This letter didn’t mention zombies, but what the heck was an “army of sickness”. Clearly, there is some history that we didn’t know about. We both read the letter several times over and then I searched the box for more letters from the forties. Unfortunately, we didn’t find anything else similar to the letter in the box or on the servers.

  Alexei scratched his chin and slowly sat back in his chair.

  “Trevor, S.T.O.R.M. is not the organization you think it is. This all may seem legit to you but don’t be fooled, there is plenty of dirt around here that this so called High Command doesn’t want you, me or any of us to find out about. I know why my Dad has this letter. It goes right along with his theory.”

  Alexei was starting to scare me. Surely every organization had things that didn’t go well or plans that hadn’t worked out the way they wanted, but I wasn’t sure if I quite believed exactly what Alexei had just said.

  “I think you’re tired and being a little dramatic but I’ll listen. So what is your Dad’s theory?”

  “S.T.O.R.M.’s favorite two words are zero-liability. They will turn their back on you like they have hundreds of times to their own people. Look at this. We have a letter here that shows the Sanders brothers begging for help. For all we know, they were killed on purpose.”

  “No there’s no way. That makes no sense. Why would they kill a Stormer on purpose?”

  Alexei stood up and got really close to me.

  “Trevor, I need to tell you something and you have to promise that you will only use this phrase if you absolutely need it.”

  I gave Alexei my word, nodding my head in agreement to Alexei’s request.

  “Trevor, I trust you with my life. You’ve proven to me that you are someone worth fighting beside and I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you. In addition to being a part of S.T.O.R.M., there is a much smaller group that I am a part of. Just like S.T.O.R.M. is the failsafe for humanity, we are its failsafe in case it fails. In the event of total structural disarray, we will rise up and assume command. We look out for each other and protect each other like family, no matter what the circumstance. The one thing that we will never do is turn our backs on each other when someone needs it. In the event that S.T.O.R.M. turns their back on you, there are five words you need to know in order to gain access to our members and our base for operations.”

  Now, this really wasn’t making any sense. There was another secret organization within S.T.O.R.M.? The layers of secrecy were beginning to get overwhelming.

  “’Take me to the cloud’. Just tell FAITH those five words and she’ll take care of the rest. However, you should only say that phrase unless you absolutely have to.”

  I quickly memorized the phrase and agreed to only use it for an extreme circumstance. To be honest, I really didn’t believe Alexei. Some crazy stuff had been thrown at us, but this was just too far off the scale. I politely asked Alexei if I could go to back to sleep. I knew I’d been sleeping for a while but I was still exhausted for some reason. He turned off the lights and sat back down in his chair. The glow from his computer remained on as I figured he would be up for a while doing more research. Whatever he found out could wait until the morning for me.

  Chapter Twenty: The Curse

  “Trevor, wake up.”

  A strange voice repeated this phrase several times but there was no way it was time to get up yet. I felt like my head had only hit my pillow minutes ago. The voice kept nagging me, and I suddenly realized that it wasn’t Alexei’s.

  “Hey! Wake up!”

  My body snapped to life when I realized whose voice that was. Why was Dwayne Quackenboss in my room telling me to get up? I opened my eyes to find that it was indeed Dwayne, but we are nowhere near my room. As a matter of fact, I was no longer in or even near the base… again.

  I sat up and marveled at the indent my body had made in the white sand. From the looks of what was around us, we appeared to be on some sort of tropical island. Out in front of me was a beautiful blue ocean and the water looked crystal clear. Behind me, however, was a different story. Lush green trees stuck out from a thick jungle. I got to my feet and noticed that Dwayne and I were both outfitted in our full combat gear complete with K-packs. A rifle, which I
assumed was mine, was slightly buried in the sand next to where I was laying down. Dwayne was holding his gun and looked more frustrated than I had ever seen him, and that was saying something.

  “Where in the hell are we, Flashman?”

  I had no idea where we were but there was only one way to find out; explore. As excited as I was to have Dwayne with me, I had a feeling this was going to be a challenging excursion. I instructed him to follow me into the jungle, saying I would take point. He initially refused to follow me out of spite, but after some arguing, I got him to agree with my plan.

  We ventured on into the jungle. Despite the way it looked from the outside, it turned out to not be as thick as I had thought. We cut through a layer of trees, vines, and giant leaves to find that within the jungle, the area was relatively clear. I took a moment to admire the beauty of the island. There were mountains in the distance and I could see a small body of water flowing down in-between the two largest mountains. I figured our best chance for survival was to head for the river.

  After a few hours of walking, I noticed that Dwayne wasn’t particularly fond of the outdoors. He was shying away from every piece of nature in our path. It was definitely clear that the jungle was not his thing. Growing up, I had gone on several camping trips with my dad and Uncle Keith. We had loved hiking and exploring new places. Even though I couldn’t explain at all how Dwayne and I ended up here together on this island, I didn’t want to waste time trying to figure it out. I wanted to keep exploring.

  The island was huge and the sun was starting to set in the distance to our left. We still had a few miles to go before we reached the river. Just then. I spotted some signs of civilization. A couple hundred yards away looked to be some sort of village with dozens of huts of some kind all near each other. I was happy I had spotted this because Dwayne had been getting grumpier by the second. I began praying that we weren’t the only two people on this island. If this was the end of the world and the only person I had left to talk to was Dwayne, I’d probably end up with much more than just a fat lip.

  Just before we reached the first hut, I noticed some people running back and forth in between a few of the buildings. I called out to the people I saw, but no one seemed to hear us. I went up to the first hut and opened the door flap. Inside it I found several young kids huddled around an elderly person. None of them looked well, to say the least. One of the children came running toward me as soon as I entered the hut and clutched my right leg.

  “Please help my grandpa. He doesn’t have much time. Please do something. Please help us. He has the curse.”

  I want to help the young boy but a red flag in my head had instantly appeared when he’d said the word “curse”. Dwayne hadn’t entered the hut with me so I decided to quickly duck out and see where he had run off to. I kindly peeled the boy off my leg and found Dwayne standing outside the hut with an unusually nervous look on his face.

  “Trevor, who are these people? Where the heck are we?”

  “I honestly don’t know where we are or who these people are. One of them in here is apparently very sick. I’m going to check out some of the other huts.”

  I poked my head into about ten other huts and talked to various people in the village. No one else seemed to be sick which was good news. I also found the leaders of the tribe and they offered us shelter and food for the night. I explained to them that we were stranded and trying to figure out where we are. Unfortunately, the leaders didn’t know which part of the world we are in either. All they said was that they had lived here for hundreds of years. Dwayne wandered off and I decided to let him be. A few minutes later I found him sitting behind one of the huts with the same nervous expression on his face that he had had for a while now.

  “Dwayne, they said we can sleep in this hut over here. They have buckets of water for us and some food. It’s getting late and we’ve been walking all afternoon. Let’s get some rest.”

  Dwayne didn’t say anything and followed me over to the hut. They seemed to be made of wood and held together with mud and clay. It was no five-star resort, but after all of the walking we’d done today, this was more than good enough for a place to spend the night.

  “Hey, I’ll take first watch. You should get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

  Dwayne’ had surprised me. I hadn’t even thought about watches, which was a great idea since we still had very little information about where we were. I still couldn’t believe that Dwayne was being nice to me. It was extremely out of character for him, especially after everything we’d been through during training. I thanked Dwayne for his offer and made myself comfortable on the ground floor. Within a few minutes, I felt my body clock out again.

  * * *

  BANG! BANG!

  I woke up in a panic as I heard gunshots go off. I looked around for Dwayne but he was gone. People were screaming outside of the hut and I frantically grabbed my rifle. I left the hut to see pure chaos unfolding right in front of me. A few of the huts were on fire and people are running in every direction. I spotted Dwayne a few yards away coming out of a different hut. As soon as he came out of the hut, he shot one of the villagers as they ran by. I immediately rushed up to the victim and held onto his hand. Unfortunately, it was too late for this man. His eyes closed and his grip on my hand quickly vanished.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” I demanded.

  “People are going crazy around here. One of them tried to bite me. I had no choice but to shoot him. Something is up Trevor. Something is very wrong.”

  “You can’t shoot these people! We have to figure what’s wrong first. Maybe we can fix it! But we can’t kill any more people. We still have no idea where we are and these people may be our only chance at survival!”

  Just then one of the villagers ran up to us and grabbed my leg.

  “Please, you have to help us! Save the ones who aren’t cursed! Save them!”

  He pointed to a hut at the far end of the village.

  “Dwayne, c’mon! Let’s go!”

  We ran off toward the hut the man had pointed to and opened the door flap as fast as we could. There was no one inside. I looked behind me to see where Dwayne was, but I couldn’t find him. I retreated back to where we had been earlier and continued to look for him.

  The situation was getting worse, with more people running around and screaming. As I ran, I heard another flurry of gunshots. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked for Dwayne. More gunshots followed and I determined the direction they had come from. I rushed to the center of the huts by the largest fire. Sure enough, the shots had come from Dwayne shooting at more people.

  “DWAYNE! STOP! We have to think about this and figure out what’s going on!”

  Another person came up to me and grabbed my arm. He was a teenager, and he looked extremely ill. His eyes were slightly red and he was panting like a dog after a marathon. Veins were starting to pop out of his face and I ripped my arm away from him. I tried to communicate with him as I slowly backed away. Before he even had a chance to respond, Dwayne gunned him down and his body fell to the ground like a rag doll. Blood spurted out in every direction and a few drops splashed onto my face. I tried yelling at Dwayne again, but it was no use. He turned and started firing at every single person within range. He was out of control and needed to be stopped. Most of his victims didn’t even seem infected. As soon as his magazine fell out of his rifle, I charged at him and tackled him to the ground.

  “YOU HAVE TO STOP! WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME?”

  I used all of my strength to keep my weight on top of him, but it wasn’t enough. He threw me off his body and immediately got back up.

  “These people are all sick Trevor! And I’m not going to let them kill me. If you’re going to keep getting in my way, then I think this is necessary.”

  He reached for the gun strapped to his thigh, raised it, and pointed it directly at me. A bright yellow dart of some kind came out of it and plunged into my right thigh. I saw the liquid filled dart and
clenched up. Almost immediately after it sank itself into my skin, the liquid began flowing into my leg. A huge rush of pain came over me and I pulled the dart out of my leg as quickly as I could. Only about half of the liquid had made into my system, but my leg was compromised. I couldn’t even feel it. It was as if it wasn’t even there. I looked back up to where Dwayne had been standing, but he’d gone. People were still running in every direction. The state of the village was worsening by the second, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to help.

  I turned onto my stomach and started crawling forward. My leg was nothing but dead weight and I needed all of my strength to drag it along with my body. I had to get to some kind of safety and away from all of these sick people. Pain shot through my body and forced me to scream out, but I fought through it and resumed crawling.

  My eyes caught something as I looked up. In the middle of all the chaos, there was a young boy standing still about fifty feet away from me. He looked terrified and completely crippled with fear. I decided to crawl towards him. The pain in my leg was increasing again and it felt like it was spreading throughout my lower body. Now, my entire lower body felt useless.

  My pace slowed down as my arms became the only part of my body that could pull me forward. I was only thirty feet away from the boy and continued to close in on him. The pain got worse and started creeping up my torso. It hurt like hell and I just wanted to stop and rest for a minute, but I kept going. Ten feet to go. The pain had now fully engulfed my torso and arms. It forced me to stop moving just five feet shy of the boy. I was drowning in the pain and it took effort for me to look up at the innocent boy.

  My eyes were getting heavy and my conscious is fading in and out. How had that little dart had such an impact on me? I looked up at the boy and called out to him several times, but he didn’t react. He just stared at me and then slowly got down to the ground. He crawled up next to me just as my eyes closed. I fought to open them but couldn’t. The boy leaned into my ear and whispered; “You have to find a way to save us all.”