by John Darling
It took about ten minutes for us to reach the hot zone again and I could tell everyone in the helicopter was extremely eager to ditch the two of us. We landed for about two seconds; they barely gave us enough time to jump out before taking off again. I brushed off some sand as I got to my feet and looked at the other Stormer.
“I guess now would be an appropriate time to introduce myself. I’m Derek Scofield.”
I stuck out my right hand and told him my name, but he quickly shot back that he knew me quite well. I asked him why he had stuck up for me back on the helo. If he hadn’t, I’m not sure we would be in this position right now.
“My twin sister Scarlet is on one of the Strike Teams, the Plague Killers, who was also sent out here. If something happened to her, and I didn’t get turn back for her, I would never forgive myself knowing that I had the opportunity. Thank you for doing what you did. Say, why did you suddenly decide to cause that ruckus?”
Derek and I began walking toward the city in the distance and I explained that Jemma’s voice had caused me to do that.
“Ahh, I see. Well, let’s go find them while we can. Luckily, we have daylight on our side.”
Derek hinted at the sun coming up over the horizon. Thankfully, we wouldn’t have to use our night vision anymore, which was good because I was not particularly fond of using it to see. I knew it was something I’d have to get used to for future missions. That is, if we didn’t get into career-ending trouble for what we had just done. Derek’s opinion was that we were utterly screwed, but we didn’t have time to worry about the consequences. I had to find Jemma.
“FAITH, please send me the coordinates of the last Code Frostbite transmission.”
Derek repeated the question several times, but FAITH didn’t respond. He recalibrated his V-pod and asked me to do the same to mine. I turned mine on and off several times, re-logged in with my password, and even manually typed in where we were. However, nothing made her respond. Suddenly, my V-pod vibrated due to an incoming call. Derek’s was getting the same call.
“Attention all Stormers fighting in Region 313. This is Captain Williams. Junior Officer Flashman and Lieutenant Junior-Grade Scofield have disobeyed orders and gone rogue. Should anyone see them, you are to use any force necessary to bring them in. They are now fugitives. That is all, carry on.”
The message sent a chill down my spine and I looked over at Derek, who looked just as terrified as I was.
“I guess that answers the question if we’re in trouble or not.”
Our V-pods vibrated again, only this time the incoming message was from FAITH. Hopefully, she had some good news for us.
“I regret to inform you that you have due to your actions have lost access to my system. I strongly advise you to return to your team immediately.”
The message from FAITH repeated several times before I decided to end the call. Out of frustration, Derek smashed his V-pod on the ground and crushed it with his boot.
“Well, we really are on our own. How could they turn their backs on us like that when we are just trying to help our own teammates?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. The phrase “turn their backs” immediately reminded me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it. I’ve heard that before. Someone else has told me that before, and then it hit me; Alexei!
“That’s it!”
Derek seemed confused by my sudden excitement. I quickly called FAITH back on V-pod and she replayed the message saying that we no longer had access to her. I held the microphone as close to my mouth as possible and yelled “FAITH! Take me to the cloud!”
The messaged stopped playing and the call didn’t stop. I graciously waited a few seconds and prayed that something good would happen. Alexei had said that if S.T.O.R.M. turned their back on me that phrase would save me. Well, they had abandoned us. I was about to give up hope when her voice came back on.
“Cloud services activated. Hello Trevor, how may I be of assistance?”
I thrust my fist up in the air and celebrated. Thank you, Alexei. Thank you. Derek asked what FAITH had said and I shared the good news. He didn’t understand what the cloud was, and what was significant about it. To be honest, neither did I, but at least we have an ally out here.
Just then, three extremely unfriendly targets approached us. By the looks of them, they had just turned and were looking for their first victims to contaminate. Derek immediately opened fire on them while I told FAITH to locate where Jemma sent the ‘Code Frostbite’ from. The three zombies fell and Derek reloaded his rifle. FAITH acknowledged the request and began working on finding her.
“Those probably aren’t going to be the last of them.”
My combat instincts kicked in and I quickly made sure both of my weapons were loaded. Derek and I agreed to keep moving. We came across several large pieces of debris, which we used for cover while we took a brief break to rest. As we put some distance behind us, random sounds sporadically went off. At one point, I could have sworn I’d heard a series of gunfire. Derek said he hadn’t heard anything but admitted that he didn’t have the best hearing.
We continued getting closer to civilization and about five hundred yards ahead of us, I spotted three overturned vehicles. Upon closer examination, we discovered that they had been black S.T.O.R.M. Humvees. One of them was on fire and the sight brought on a feeling of comfort, as well as a disturbing feeling. As we hid behind one of them, we realized that we could be getting close to where Jemma reported from. We also realized that seeing overturned S.T.O.R.M. vehicles couldn’t mean anything but bad news. Derek then pointed out several bullet holes in the side door. This hadn’t been the work of zombies. Someone else was out here shooting, but who?
Out of nowhere came a burst of screaming, causing Derek and I to immediately raise our rifles.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yup, let’s move.”
The screams were followed by gunfire and I realized that we’d reached the same village we had been in before. Unlike before, there is a significant amount of noise coming from every direction. I ducked underneath a large piece of scrap metal and Derek claimed that he had spotted a U.S. vehicle shooting at something. Was the Army responsible for destroying our Humvees? I decided to ask FAITH if she could let me listen to S.T.O.R.M.’s open frequency and thankfully, she granted me access. She informed me that since I was on the cloud network, I could only listen and not transmit.
To my surprise, the chatter from my V-pod was nonstop. My left ear was starting to hurt from all of the voices screaming about the presence of not only more zombies, but U.S. troops. The U.S. Army was officially on scene and executing a full assault on the outbreak, but primarily on the Stormers. From what it sounds like, they were not holding back at all. I shivered in fear as I listened to other Stormers being killed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear Jemma’s voice.
* * *
I continued to listen with the hope that either Jemma or someone from her team would report in, but with each passing minute that hope grew dimmer. We approached a few small huts and ran toward them for cover. I cleared the first two, and we proceeded toward the third one. As soon as I peered in, I caught the movement of a foot and readied myself to pull the trigger on my assault rifle. I instantly held back when I discovered that the foot belonged to a small child. He looked only to be five or six and terrified for his life. He wasn’t wearing any clothes and there seemed to be no sign of infection anywhere on his body.
I laid my weapon on the ground and approached him slowly while Derek asked if I was OK. I told him I was and to stay outside the hut. The little boy informed me that his brothers had gone looking for his parents and told him to stay in the hut until they returned. It was a miracle that none of the zombies running around had found this child. I knew that there was a chance that all of his family were gone. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to waste so I grabbed his hand and told him to stay right behind me. Derek questioned why I had taken him and I explained that we couldn’t
leave him behind. He agreed and we scouted the area in front of us for any threats.
I sighted a series of small buildings about two miles away from us. We needed to get to higher ground so we can get a better view of the area. Unfortunately, that seemed to be where the most of the gunfire and screaming was concentrated. I asked Derek if he thought it was worth the risk to go over there and he thought so, but was worried about the boy slowing us down. I needed to get the boy to safety before something bad happened to him.
While hiding behind a container that was being used as a makeshift home, I spotted another vehicle. This one was definitely a U.S. Army Humvee. It wasn’t overturned or on fire and I wondered if it was abandoned since I couldn’t see any soldiers in or near it. If it still ran, we could use it to cover more ground.
The two hundred yards or so that lay in front us lacked any sort of threat so now was the time to move. I grabbed the boy and continued to keep a sharp lookout for any U.S. soldiers or zombies. We started to hear voices shouting and my stomach dropped. The fear of being seen only made us run faster. All of a sudden, bullets started flying in our direction and I would have sworn one of them went between my legs. I slung my rifle over my shoulder and the three of us slid underneath the Humvee.
The gunfire came to an end a few seconds later. Voices became louder and I looked from underneath the vehicle to see people moving toward us. Judging from their combat boots, they must be U.S. soldiers. I started to panic and feared for what they would do if they found us. They got closer and were now within a few feet. I looked at the boy and then at Derek, who were both lying on the ground next to me. It was impressive how fast Derek had been able to get his six foot two body underneath the Humvee.
I quickly brainstormed a solution and came up with an idea. I whispered it to Derek; it was a long shot, but maybe just crazy enough to work. In the corner of my eye, I spotted a soldier walking around the vehicle and I pushed the boy out from under the Humvee. They spotted him and my heart jumped. I was afraid that the next sound I would hear would be gunshots. Thankfully, they had noticed that he was not in the same state that most of the other people running around the village were. I watched in relief as he walked away with one of the soldiers. The other two sets of boots, however, walked around to the other side of the Humvee and I heard one of them ask the other if he had seen anyone else with the boy.
The boots got closer to us on both sides of the vehicle. I didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t be captured and killing American soldiers was not an option either. However, we still had a mission because Jemma and potentially Scarlet were still out there. As much as I didn’t want to, eliminating the soldiers might have been our only option if they were keeping us from getting out from under here alive.
I slowly reached for my pistol strapped onto the side of my left leg and looked at Derek. I screwed on my silencer and he did the same. I gradually placed my finger on the trigger and pointed my silenced pistol at the soldier on the left side while Derek pointed his at the other. A bullet to each leg would definitely put them out of commission for at least a few seconds. That’s all we needed to get to the driver’s door of the vehicle. I bit my lip and braced myself as simultaneously both sets of boots stopped. This was our chance to strike. I took a short breath and focused my aim.
The soldier on my left side lay down on his stomach and made eye contact with me. Out of nowhere, screams erupted and the soldier let out a yell as he got bitten. I watched the soldier on the other side run around to help the one that was down. We quickly crawled in-between the front two tires and rolled out from underneath the Humvee. Multiple zombies were all over each of the soldiers and we took the liberty of shooting them all from behind. The two soldiers on the ground screamed out in pain, but there was nothing that we could do for them. What was in store for them would not be pretty.
Just before getting into the driver’s seat of the Humvee, we shot them both. I hated the fact that we had to do that, but we had to prevent the infection from spreading. I started the vehicle as Derek hopped in the passenger side and sped off toward the buildings, leaving a pile of dead people in the rear view mirror.
We covered ground much faster in the Humvee as compared to walking, but as soon as I had started driving, we began taking fire. I presumed it was from more U.S. soldiers. The shooting became heavier as we got closer to the buildings. If it hadn’t been for the bulletproof structure of the vehicle, we would have been killed for sure. The shooting continued and I didn’t want to risk losing the vehicle so I quickly drove in the opposite direction. The firing ceased a few minutes later and I figured that we must have driven out of their range. While we made our slick getaway, I ran over several zombies in the process. It was actually much easier to kill them at full speed with a five ton Humvee than by shooting them in person. My driving rampage was sharply interrupted by a message from FAITH coming through my earbud. I brought the vehicle to a stop so I could listen to it without any background noise.
“Last location of JO Smith found! Latitude 11 degrees 28 minutes North, Longitude 42 degrees 19.4 minutes east. Twelve miles southwest of your current location.”
Finally, some good news. Hang in there Jemma, I’m coming to get you.
Chapter Thirty-Five: She Can’t Be Gone
I put the vehicle into drive again and shifted the weight of my foot onto the gas pedal. Now that we had an idea of where Jemma possibly was, there might have been an actual chance of finding her. She was out there. I had to keep believing that she was out there. The location flashed on my V-pod as we drove through the desert. FAITH even pinpointed our location so we could see how far away from the position we were on the screen. Derek was hoping that Scarlet was near that location as well. He had scolded himself several times now for smashing his own V-pod. If he hadn’t, he would have been able to look up her V-pod number on his and call hers through mine. While he desperately tried to remember the number, I was trying to calculate if there would be enough gas in this thing to get us to our destination.
The desert was excruciating when it came to heat. I’d been sweating ever since the helicopters had turned around and dropped us off. According to FAITH, it was now somewhere around 112 degrees Fahrenheit and the sun wasn’t even all that high in the sky yet. I had sweat through my combat suit and liquid dripped off my forehead and face like a fountain. I tried to turn on the Humvee’s air conditioning but couldn’t figure out which dial on the dashboard controlled the temperature. Regardless of the heat, we continued to drive. Without any sort of bearing or landmarks to work from, we were completely relying on the accuracy of those coordinates.
After about thirty minutes, I checked to see how far we had left to go. The V-pod is showing that we have a little over twenty-five miles left to travel. In this environment, it might as well have been five hundred miles. With nothing but sand for miles in every direction from where we were, I was starting to lose hope that Jemma or anyone could survive out here. Suddenly, the Humvee started shaking and I slowed down to about fifteen miles an hour until it returned to normal. Derek speculated that the engine was overheating. That might have been the case since we had been going pretty fast only a few moments earlier. I slowly sped up as the Humvee returned to normal. The last thing I wanted to do was burn out the engine. Walking in this environment was not something I wanted to do if we could avoid it.
Another forty minutes passed by and we still had fourteen miles to go. We should have been closer but a sandstorm had come through a little while ago and forced me to pull over since we couldn’t see anything. Luckily, it had only lasted a few minutes and then we resumed driving.
While we waited, Derek had told me a little about himself. He said that he and his sister were originally from Chicago and constantly moved around the world since their parents had been in the Army. The most time he’d ever spent in one place was three years when they were stationed in Texas, which he’d loved. What intrigued me the most was how he had been brought into S.T.O.R.M.
&nbs
p; Unlike most people, who had been recruited from Special Forces teams or other divisions of the military, he and his sister had been put into foster care when their parents had both died suddenly in a car accident when they were fourteen. Once they had turned eighteen, they had both been offered full ROTC scholarships to Auburn University in Alabama. Without any other options for college, they both took the scholarships and graduated four years later. Two days after they had graduated, they had been paid a visit by two undercover Stormers and told that the S.T.O.R.M. had footed the bill for them to go to college in hopes that they would join the fight. Both he and Scarlet chose to go to combat school together and had been fighting threats in Africa and the Middle East ever since.
Derek continued to reminisce about his life as we drove but I had to cut him off when a series of beeps sounded from my V-pod. I looked down at it to discover that we were within half a mile of the spot FAITH had pinpointed. I slowed the Humvee down and began searching for any signs of life. I instructed Derek to carefully look as well. After ten minutes of intense searching, I decided to put the vehicle in park and to look around on foot.
I yelled out Jemma’s name while Derek yelled out Scarlet’s but it didn’t help. No matter how loud we screamed, there was nothing and more importantly, no one else out here. Out of frustration, I re-calibrated my V-pod and yelled at FAITH to re-confirm that this was the location. She confirmed it several times and I finally told her to stop since her voice is bothering me. Out of frustration, I knelt down and shook my head. She can’t be gone. There’s no way. She can’t be.
Now, I had to make a crucial decision. Should we keep moving on through the desert in the Humvee? Or should we continue looking from here since FAITH had said this was the spot she had called from? The hot sun beat down on us as I contemplated what to do. Derek took a sip from one of the water bottles in his K-pack and then tossed it to me. The warm water instantly refreshed me and I downed the whole bottle without realizing it.