The soldier spoke with great confidence, as he explains the outcome of the mission, “General McHale. Sir. As you see, some of the Clusters have been destroyed in the earthquake.”
“Which ones?”
The soldier looked at a printout on a clipboard, as he did that, the power dimmed to a soft hum, and the place became dark. Only seconds passed, and then the power came back up to full strength.
“Go on,” McHale said.
"Okay, Sir. Clusters One, Four, and Five were moderately damaged, while Clusters Ten and Six were severely crippled," the soldier said, as he read from his clipboard.
“What about the other Clusters?”
The soldier flipped the page, and scanned it over before giving him the news, "Sir, Clusters Two, and Fifteen has completely failed under the quake. If you turn your attention to the screen up front you can see Cluster Two, or what's left of it."
McHale looked, and he could see the pile of cement folded in on its self, fires burning brightly, and smoke billowing up high into the atmosphere. He was pleased with what he saw. "Any survivors from Two or Seven," he asked with a smug look.
“Too early to tell General. Our heat-synched drones can’t pick up anything until the flames subside, it’s just too damn hot Sir.”
“I want drones in there in three hours, and I want troops on the ground by daybreak. If there are survivors, we need to get to them. That is all,” he ordered, as he walked out the two steel doors that he came out of.
As he rode the elevator topside, his two assistants stood at attention, one on his left, and one on his right. McHale thumbed through a file, and turned to the soldier on his right, "There have to be survivors. There just has to be."
“Sir, the likely hood of survivors is high,” the soldier replied.
“That’s what I’m thinking too soldier, but what are the odds that some of them made it out,” he asked curiously.
“Sir, this soldier does not know. Making it out of one of those two crumbled Clusters is nearly impossible.”
The elevator comes to a jarring halt, and the doors slide open. McHale was now in another part of the base; this one seemed to be the general barracks. He walked around greeting the soldiers, and they greeted him back. For the most part, they all seem to like, and respect him. He made his way over to another large soldier with a shaved head, and he was wearing a tank-top, army colors of course. He was cleaning his gun on his bed.
“Officer Kennedy, how are we doing this afternoon,” McHale asked.
Kennedy doesn’t stop cleaning his weapon, but does give McHale the respect he deserves and answered him, “Doing great General.”
“I’m going to need something from you, and your crew.”
“Oh yeah, and what’s that, Sir?”
“At 0600 hours, I need you, and your team to head a mission to Cluster Two.”
“What kind of mission?”
“It’s a full Tango-12 mission.”
“Tango-12 huh?”
"The whole thing has collapsed, you and your team, just have to go in and take care of the survivors. We can't leave them there alone, and hungry, now can we?"
“No Sir, we can’t,” he said, as he finished cleaning his weapon.
A Walk in the Dark
Jessica, Andrew, Barry, and Jupiter walked through the forest, hurt, tired, and alone. Jessica still remembered the look on Gracie’s face when they buried her, and laid her to rest. The handfuls of dirt, that were gently tossed on her innocent body, as they covered her up, brought tears to her eyes, but she did her best to hold them back. Where were we walking? Did Andrew have a plan? I have no choice but to follow him, she thought to herself. Drudging through the thick woods at night was a task in of itself. A few obstacles that the night, and forest brought, just to name a few: fallen trees to climb over, roots to trip on, smelly sucking mud pulling at their feet with each step they took, and not to mention hordes of animalistic flesh-eaters.
Jessica was running low on energy, and the thick sucking mud was taking a toll on her. Andrew looked back, and through the light of the moon that shined in between the trees, he could see her exhaustion. Jessica tried to take another step, but the mud, and roots tripped her up, and she fell to the wet mossy ground. Andrew hurried over to help her up.
“Are you okay Jess,” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her, and hoisted her up.
“I’m fine. Thank you,” she said, as she wiped her face free from the mud.
“Come on, stay with me.”
She took his hand, and she let him lead her through the outrageously dangerous terrain. Barry, Jupiter, Andrew and Jessica made their way through the woods. They were all drained of energy, and Andrew could tell, that’s what a good leader does, they read people. He stopped walking, and dropped her hand. Then he looked around, and scouted the area, “Hold up everyone. This is a good place to make camp; get some rest for the night.”
“Thank, you, Jesus. I’m, exhausted,” Jupiter said, as he sat down on the wet ground, and leaned back against a tree.
Barry cocked his weapon, and looked around. He turned to Andrew, and said, “Andrew, we need someone to keep watch, just incase eaters show up.”
“Good point Barr, I can take first watch.”
“No, you’ve done enough. You need to relax, and rest. We need you strong in the morning.”
“If you see anything, don’t hesitate to shoot first. You’ve got it?”
Barry nodded, and agreed. Then he said to Andrew, “Of course, now get some sleep.”
Andrew shook his hand, in a thankful gesture. Barry went on ahead, but not too far, they could still see him in the moonlight. Andrew took off his jacket, and laid it on the ground. “Here, this will keep you dry, and a bit warmer,” he said to Jessica.
Jessica didn’t know what to think about this good willed gesture. How could she take his jacket, and use it for her personal benefit. She told him, “I don’t feel right taking your jacket, you use it.”
He replied with, “If you’re not going to use it to stay dry, then I’m going to give it to Jupiter.”
She was cold, and wet, so she decided to take him up on his offer. She laid down on the jacket, and Andrew laid down next to her. They were starring up through the trees into the sky. The stars have always been so beautiful in the past, but now all she could think about with all those stars was it was Gracie shinning down on her from heaven.
Andrew reached for her hand, and she felt his calloused hand softly searching for her fingers. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to comfort her, but she didn’t want it. She moved her hand to her stomach. Her breaths became shallow, and quick, she felt like she couldn’t catch her breath, or slow her breathing down to a resting pace.
Quietly, and calmly Andrew whispered to her, “You know there was nothing you could have done to save her… Things will be different in the morning.”
She rolled over on her side, as she began to find herself falling asleep, but she is haunted by the image of Gracie’s dead body in that shallow grave. Focus on my breathing… Focus on the stars… Focus on the coldness of the ground… Andrew’s speech… Anything but her, she thought as she tried to calm herself. Soon she was drifting off to a deep slumber, and then, just like that, she had fallen asleep. Her unconscious was now taking over where she had control no longer.
There was a soft tapping on Jessica’s shoulder, causing her to startle awake. It was still dark, so it had to be at least the middle of the night. The tapping had gone away, so she just ignored it, and tried to fall back to sleep… but there it was again, that tapping. She opened her eyes, and turned her head to see what it was. The moon had moved from its position directly above them, and all she could make out was a dark silhouette. It was not a large figure like Andrew’s or Jupiter’s, it was smaller.
A voice whispered through the darkness, and was carried through the breeze, “Jess…”
She sat up now more curious. She felt as if she knew the voice, so she answered back wit
h an unsurely, “Hello?”
The voice hauntingly replied, “Jess, it’s me.”
“Gracie,” she questioned as her heart began to race.
The figure came into the light of the moon, exposing itself. The pale skin, dirty hair, and muddy arms that belonged to Gracie, took Jessica back as her heart skipped a beat. Upon closer inspection, she could see the blackness of her hands, and the dirt under her fingernails from digging out of her grave, that stood out against her light blue dress. With those same fingers, Gracie raised one up to her dirt caked, blue lips, and just said, “Shush”.
Jessica was paralyzed with fear. Thoughts raced through her mind, how could this be? She was dead… I saw it with my own eyes, as she tried to make sense of it all. She closed her eyes tightly, and screamed with her remaining breath, but nothing came out. She then dug her feet into the dirt, and pushed herself backwards, trying to get away from Gracie as quickly as possible, but she found herself quickly back up against a tree.
Gracie began crawling over towards Jessica as her figure flickered in, and out of the moonlight. She inched closer… Jessica’s breathing was now heavier, and faster…Closer… Screaming was useless, because nothing was coming out of her mouth… Gracie’s almost on top of her when finally there was a loud screech let out, and it wasn’t Jessica. She tried fighting Gracie off, but she kept at her, snapping her jaws as she tried to bite at her flesh. Just as she was about to take a chunk out of her esophagus, she is awoken.
Andrew, Barry, and Jupiter stood over her, while the warm sun poked itself through the trees. Even though her eyes were open, her mind didn’t comprehend what was real, and what wasn’t.
Jupiter knelt down, and tried to calm her down, “Jess, calm, down. It, was, just, a, bad, dream.”
After catching her breath, and slowly calming down, she started to explain to all of them her dream, “She was here.”
“Who,” Barry asked.
She got to her feet, and looked around like an insane person. Then she explained, “Gracie, she was right here with me, except she wasn’t herself. She was a flesh-eater.”
“You’re safe now,” Andrew said in a comforting voice.
She couldn’t believe she was acting like this. She was surprised they didn’t put a round in her right there, and take her out. The dream though… The dream felt so real. I could see her breath in the cold night’s air, the dirt under her fingernails, her body as she climbed mine. I don’t want to revisit that, so she got it out of the back of her mind. She straightened up, and acted as normal as possible. “You’re right, it was just a bad dream,” she said, hoping they bought what it was she was selling.
Barry turned to Andrew, “So, Simmons, what’s the plan now that our home is completely destroyed?”
Andrew took out a compass from his backpack, and found north. “I say we head in that direction,” he suggested as he pointed off in the distance. Then he continued, “That’s where we’ve ridden the land-cruisers before, and scoped out the terrain. It’s near the hospital, you remember Barr?”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with that spot. The hospital can make for some good shelter if need be.”
Jessica throws in her two cents, “What about other survivors, we can’t be the only ones. Right?”
Andrew always had an answer, and this time was no different, “Right now Jess, we need to stick together, and find shelter. Eaters are out there, and I don’t want to be one of their main meals, if you know what I mean. This gun,” he paused for a quick moment as he said, as he held his rifle up to show them, then continued on, “also Barry’s, that’s all we’ve got. Once these rounds are spent, it’s over.”
“You don’t think I know that,” she yelled, then tried to plead with him, “I’m just thinking that we should head towards some of the other Clusters. You know, find other survivors.”
“I agree, we need to do that, but first we need shelter… Deal?”
She pondered over the deal for a few moments, and then answered, “Okay, but after we find shelter, we find the others.”
Andrew gave her one of those heart-melting smiles, and they both shook on it. He rounded up the others, and then ventured through the woods, like he had been there before. They were now off, crunching through the leaves, cracking the fallen branches, and sticks as they stepped their way towards a possible shelter.
They hiked through the wooded area for some time, when they heard popping coming from behind them. They stop to try, and figure out what it was. They listen quietly as the sound was coming from the direction of the Cluster. Curious, the group listened for a bit longer.
POP… POP… POP! The sounds came in succession, and then kept coming, faster, and more furious. Barry joined Andrew, and they both stare off into the distance, listening to echoing sounds. Off in the horizon they couldn’t see the Cluster, but to the sky they could still see the remnants of the earthquake, and destruction, by the smokescreen in the air.
“Those aren’t popping sounds, that’s gunfire,” Andrew said with a concerned look on his face.
“Andrew, why is there gunfire coming from the Cluster,” Jessica asked.
“I don’t know, but we need to get as far away from here as possible, and as quickly as we can,” Andrew explained.
“But –“
“Come on, we gotta move – Now!”
Revisiting Cluster Two
General McHale stood in the control room, awaiting any word from his teams. He sipped on a warm cup of coffee in his green mug. He turned to the main screen in the front of the room, and watched satellite thermal images of Cluster Two. Then one of the soldiers wearing a headset turned to McHale, and told him there was word from Alpha-Team-Seven. McHale took a slow sip of his beverage, savored it for a moment, and then asked, “What do we got?”
“Alpha-Team-Seven is at Cluster Two,” the soldier said.
“Please give me good news,” he said in a calming tone.
“Team Seven reports zero survivors, operation is a success.”
“Tell them to come back home. An extraction team will pick them up at the helicopter pad atop the hospital in the city,” he said. With that he walked out the room as the soldier relayed the message to the ground forces of Team Seven.
Down on the ground at Cluster Two, Rick Cunningham, lead soldier of Alpha-Team-Seven, watched as his team checked Cluster Two for more survivors. He was hand picked by McHale to head this unit. He was a young guy, tall, and fit. He had always wanted to join the armed forces, even before the outbreak.
Cunningham found himself walking around checking on the damages from the earthquake. He didn’t wear a helmet, and his rifle was slung over his right shoulder, as he carried a clipboard in his hands. While he was going about his inspection, a soldier who called out, Survivor, interrupted him.
He stood up from his crouched position, and watched, as several soldiers of The United Front surrounded an old lady that had risen from the rubble. She was dirty, weak, had tattered clothing, and was looking for help. She didn’t know whom to go to, she was disoriented, confused, and scared. The soldiers froze awaiting their orders. All eyes were on Cunningham as he jotted something down in his logbook that was attached to the clipboard. Then with a nod of his head, he nonverbally gave the order.
The soldiers began open firing on the old lady. They unleashed fiery bits of metal into, and through her elderly body. Cunningham watched as she fell to her knees. Another survivor from the quake that was hiding in a pod, a man from the Cluster, came running to the woman’s aid. Cunningham again silently give the order, and the troops turned their weapons to the man, and they open fired.
Cunningham, who was unfazed by this vicious act of violence, marked again in the logbook that there was another survivor, then he walked over to his soldiers. He looked at the old woman, and then over at that man. He jotted something in his book, looked at the troops, and the he ordered with a stern voice, “Burn them, burn it all. We just got word to evacuate, mission’s accomplished. We head out t
o the city, and a chopper will extract us from the heli-pad.”
A soldier wearing a backpack, and carrying a flamethrower lit the end. He pulled the trigger of the flamethrower, and a steady stream of white-hot flame engulfed the man’s body, setting him on fire almost instantly. The soldier then turned the flamethrower to the old woman’s body, and just like the man, she is torched with the heat within moments, she was aflame.
Cunningham turned away. He never liked carrying out these certain orders, but what had to be done, just has to be done. His second in command Johnson rounded up the troops, as they finished burning up what they could.
“Cunningham,” Johnson said, as he approached him.
“What’s the status on us getting the hell outta this depressing place,” Cunningham replied.
“Charges are set, we just need to head out past the blasting zone.”
“E.T.A.?”
Johnson checked his watch, then answered Cunningham’s question, “Thirty-minutes.”
“And that’s to hit the clear zone?”
“Yes Sir, that’s correct; thirty-minutes total.”
Cunningham wrote the information down in the book, then closed it, and picked his helmet up off the ground. Johnson awaited his confirmation, so Cunningham Instructed, “Go ahead with operation, and make sure everyone gets out.” Johnson turned, and headed to the other troops, as Cunningham watched, as Johnson informed the squad of their plans.
_____________________
Barry was the first one out of the woods, and they had finally made it to the edge of the road. Andrew, in only Andrew fashion waited for all of them to make it out of the woods before he headed out. Jessica couldn’t believe she was actually standing there. The last time she was here at the roads, was when she was with her squad. That was the time she found her Smith and Wesson that currently rested on her hip.
A Regressive World: Book One Page 6