With a loud BANG, the door was opened, and he was out it. The loud sound quickly got the attention of the zombies. A few of them jolted right up off of what they were eating, and quickly made their way for the open door that led to the outside of the compound. Once they reached the door, they didn’t just rush out it, they examined the doorway first. Then they peered out the door, the sun blinded their eyes, but they adjusted without a problem.
The zombies saw more staff, and soldiers outside walking calmly about in the courtyard, unknowingly aware of what chaos was unfolding inside the building. Cunningham didn’t warn anyone, he just saved his own ass, and got as far away from that building as possible. The zombies waited for the perfect opportunity to make their attack. It seemed like only seconds passed until they scrambled across the open yard, like a lion pouncing on its pray.
The first zombie in the yard took down a female officer, and without hesitation he sank his teeth into her neck. The second zombie tackled two male soldiers, and devoured the throat of one, and before the other soldier had a chance to realize what was happening, he too was bitten in his throat. Zombies liked the throat as their first point of attack, not only was the rush of blood delicious, it usually killed their victim right on the spot.
More zombies heard the commotion, and came creeping from the doorway, and into the yard. Gunfire soon ensued as the soldiers began trying to stop the zombies from overtaking the area. Sadly the efforts of the soldiers were for not. The zombies quickly overran the soldiers, guards, and backup that they had called in. It became a horrific scene, blood smeared across walls, saturating the grassy ground, bodies piled up, and team zombies were gaining new recruits at a unbelievable pace, everything was quickly getting out of control.
Train Me
It’s been a couple of months since they had their talk with Ethan about helping take down the UF. Jessica and Andrew had been training hard everyday, not only physically, but also mentally. She felt as if She was as ready as she would ever be, but Andrew’s motto was, there’s always more to learn. The training continued on, and she still had no confirmation from Ethan either way. All that training, and preparation might have been for nothing. She could be the most dangerous soldier to never be used in battle.
As for her and Ethan’s relationship, it was good. They just didn’t talk about the plan green lighting or not. They talked a lot, laughed, and went out scouting quite a bit, but she couldn’t close him on the plan. She didn’t want to push him too hard, but she didn’t want him to think she had lost interest, or commitment to the cause… because she hadn’t.
Over the past few months, they hadn’t heard too much from The U.F., and Ethan’s inside sources hadn’t checked in with him either. She would say that she was sad, but no news from the United Front was good news, so Ethan told all of them in their weekly meetings. As for Barry and Jupiter, they had become accustomed to the way of life here at the safe house. Sure they train just as hard as Andrew and Jess did. They were not getting soft, but they just seemed to like all that the safe house brought, good food, comfy beds, and especially no flesh-eaters.
Jessica sat on the front porch and stared at the vast fields of cornstalk. The breeze kissed her cheeks, and the sun beat down on the house. She still thought a lot about Gracie and her family with these long peaceful days. It seemed that's all she had to hold on to from her past, thought every thing in her life had just been so negative lately, but since arriving here at the farmhouse, things had gotten a little better.
The front screen door squeaked, as it swung open. She was so focused on her thoughts; she didn't even look up to see who it is. She could hear the sound of soles clicking off the wooden floorboards, in a male's voice he asked, "Mind if I sit here?"
She looked up, and saw that it was Ethan, and she replied half-heartedly, “Sure, no one else is.”
Ethan sat down next to her in the empty chair. He looked out at the cornfields, and then spoke, “It’s beautiful out there you know.”
“I know, that’s why I’m out here.”
“You know Hellcat, it’s been a long few months. I have been racking my brain over this plan of ours, and whether or not to involve you and your team. I’ve seen you training, and I have to say that you look good. I just don’t –“
She couldn't take any more of this torture from him, so she spoke up as she cut him off, "Are we doing this or not? I've been training, learning, and getting my team ready. If you don't want us to help the cause, then just say it. If it's because I'm a girl, then just say that. I can handle it."
“If you would let me finish, I was going to say I think it’s a good idea, and I think you and your team are ready now.”
She was in disbelief, but she found a way to muster up the words, and replied, “Seriously?”
“Yeah… I’m serious. You guys have impressed me over the past few months.”
“I don’t know what to say,” She muttered out.
“Don’t say anything, you haven’t even heard what the plan entails. My office half-hour,” he said, as he got up off the chair, and headed back inside as the door creaked as it swung open, and closed again.
Jessica was overcome with emotions. She was excited but also nervous at the same time. She was so overwhelmed by the news; she had to collect her thoughts. First things first, she got up from her chair and ran to find Andrew so she could tell him the good news. She heard the sound of gunfire down at the range, so she headed in that direction first. Andrew couldn't get enough of target practice, even though he was already a crack shot, so that could be him. As she approached the gunfire got louder.
She covered her ears to dull down the sounds. The closer she got, she could see that the range was full today, about twenty-five people, and she spotted the most important one; Andrew. He had his weapon up, nestled in his right shoulder, and round after round exploded from the barrel of his gun.
She didn't want to startle him, so she sat on the bench behind him, and waited for him to turn around. The smell of gunpowder sniffed through her nose while the ringing in her ears grew louder. Andrew lowered his weapon, and removed his earplugs, thus signaling he was finished shooting. She watched as he packed up his things, and turned around. She waved to him from the bench, and he waived back acknowledging her.
He saunters over with his black artillery bag slung over his shoulder, and his rifle in his hand, he then made his way over to her.
“Hellcat. What brings you down here? It’s not our training time.”
“I’ve got news, but not here. It’s too loud,” she yelled over the gunfire.
“Okay.”
They walked up the hill little ways, and the sound of gunfire settled down a bit. She walked side by side with him and close so he could hear the sound of her voice. "Ethan, and I spoke this morning."
“Oh yeah, what did he have to say?”
“Well, he told me to get my team ready, and that we are executing the plan,”
“Really, he said that,” he said with disbelief.
“He said we’ve impressed him over that past couple of months, and he thinks we can pull it off. So… What do you think,” she asked him.
Andrew thought about it for a moment, and then answered her with a smile, “ I think we can do this.”
“What will Barry, and Jupiter say about it? Do you think they’re still onboard?”
“I think that all the training that they have put in, says a lot about where they stand.”
They reached the farm house, she checked her watch, and replied, “Good, because we have a meeting with Ethan now in his office to go over the plan.”
“Why don’t I round up the guys, and meet you in there?”
“That’s fine, I’ll see you in there.”
She walked in the house and headed for Ethan's office. The door was closed, so she knocked, and heard Ethan's voice, "Come in." She opened the door, and Ethan was sitting at his desk with plans scattered across the top of it.
"Come have a seat," he reques
ted. She walked over closer to the desk and took a seat. "Where is your team?"
"They're coming," she said, as the boys came walking into the room. Andrew took a seat next to her while the other two stood on either side of the desk. Jessica began the conversation, "Hey guys… Thanks for coming."
“No, problem, Jess,” Jupiter replied.
“So, why are we here,” Barry asked.
Ethan stood up, and leaned over the desk, “We’re here to discuss the implementation of the plan.”
“Wait are we going ahead with this thing,” Barry questioned.
Ethan flattened the plans out with his hands, and then he turned his attention to focus mainly on Andrew and Jess. “Okay, here it goes. These are blueprint plans of The United Front’s main headquarters just a few miles away from here. The plan’s main objective is to take out their communications lines, and thus shutting down their defense systems.
Once the communications and defense systems are out, we can pose an attack on their compound. With this strike, we are hoping to bring down one of their main operating bases, and slow down their experiments. In return, we take one step closer to defeating the entire U.F., and taking back this world we live in. Now no one has ever gotten close to a U.F base, never mind a headquarters. Obviously with that said, no one has even successfully attacked The U.F. directly."
Andrew nodded his head; he seemed to be agreeing with what Ethan had said. He slid to the end of his chair and leaned forward to look over the blueprints. Then his curious mind took, over, and he began to ask questions. "Okay, I've got the objective down, but what's the plan? How do we execute this," Andrew questioned.
Ethan began to show us the blueprints in more detail, as he explained the plan further, “Good question. Here’s what we’ll do. The compound is shaped like a rectangle, but in the middle is what they call the yard.”
“Kind of like the Pentagon where the middle is almost sort of speaking cut out,” Barry piped in.
"Yes, just like the Pentagon Barry. Now there's no way in through your standard entrances. My Intel says that there are waste vents strewn about the exterior walls. Here, here, and here. These events are our way in; they lead to various locations throughout inside walls. Now this one here, in particular, is the one we are going to go with. Hellcat, you're the first one in. Barry and Andrew are going to cover you while Jupiter gets the vent cover free."
“Got, it,” Jupiter confirmed.
“So Barry, and I cover Jess, then we all follow behind her,” Andrew asked.
“I’ll be there too, but yes she goes first,” Ethan explained.
“Where does this vent-shaft lead?”
“It should, according to my people on the inside, leads us right to the yard.”
“I’m not too sure if I want Jess being the first one on the ground in the yard. It seems a little too dangerous to let her go in with no firepower to back her up.”
“I see your point… Why don’t we do this, send in Barry first, then Hellcat, then Jupiter, with you coming up the rear? ”
“Better.”
“Okay, back to the plan. Once we get inside the walls, we head across the yard with hopefully little resistance. We will end up at these doors right here,” he said, as he pointed to two double doors on the blueprint. “Past these doors lies the com room; the brains of their operation. This is where Jupiter comes into play. We need you to get in there, and find their servers—“
Jupiter speaks up, “Wait, they, have, working, electricity?”
"They do, but barebones. No internet or anything like that, just enough power to power their com room, connect with their soldiers, and drones, etcetera," Ethan explained further, "Just stay with me for a few more moves guys, we're almost done. Once inside Jupiter is going to disable their servers, this will damage their communications with their other compounds, soldiers, and drones. Oh, most importantly their security system will fail. This is when we make our escape. There should be a fair amount of confusion happening at this point and in the midst of that confusion we head back to the vent we came in, and follow it back out.
Once the security systems are down, that’s when the rebels make their attack. They will be positioned just out of the line of sight from the compound. We launch a flare, and they will start rolling in.”
Barry seemed to have an issue with the plan, Jessica could tell by his body language. Then he spoke up, "Wait just a minute… We are going to get slaughtered if we just come out of the vent shaft, and into the yard.”
Ethan turned his attention away from us and headed to his closet. He opened the door, and hung from a wooden bar are five U.F. soldier uniforms. "That's why we have these," he said, as he showed them the nicely hung uniforms.
Their eyes lit up, where could he have gotten these? No one just finds a UF soldier’s uniform, let alone five, Jessica thought to herself. She walked over to the closet, and looked at the garments, she began to go through them, sliding each suit to the left, while examining each one. They looked real, and they felt official, but how? She turned to Ethan, and questioned his methods, “Where, and how did you acquire these?”
Ethan smiled, “Don’t worry, they’re clean, no one died in these uniform. My people on the inside have been smuggling them out of the headquarters over the past year. The U.F. would notice five suits missing all at once, but not one at a time slowly.”
Andrew seemed to like the suits, and said, “Now I’m liking this plan even more.”
“When do we go,” She asked.
" I was thinking tomorrow at daybreak. The clouds out there look like a rainstorm is about to roll in, that should give us a little cover."
“And you’re sure your Intel is solid about these vents,” Andrew asked.
“Rock solid,” Ethan replied as he reassured them about the concreteness of the plan they were about to execute. “Now any questions before we close?”
They looked at each other, and none of them seemed to have any questions, all seem to be on the same page. With a long pause of silence, Ethan wrapped up the meeting, and they headed to the kitchen for dinner. Barry and Jupiter stayed behind to checkout the suits, they were intrigued by them, even though Barry was a soldier.
Time passed as they ate dinner, and then, it was off to the front porch again to relax, and take it in. Andrew took a seat next to Jessica, and they both just stared at the night’s sky. There were not any more twinkling bright stars around them, because of the dense clouds that had rolled in earlier. The air was a bit cooler than other nights, and she took it all in for what it was worth, for all she knew this could be her last night alive after their mission in the morning. She knew the risks, Andrew knew the risks, and so did Barry and Jupiter, but we weren’t backing down. There were just too many wrongs that needed righting.
Andrew was the first to speak, “You good with this?”
“With what?”
“This, the plan, the rebel cause, all of it. You just say the word, and we’re out of here tonight Jess. We’ll survive fine on our own, you, me, Barry and Jupiter.”
It was just like him to still be looking out for her, but this was something that she had to do. "I'm all in. We can't let The U.F. keep doing this to us, and them, and whoever else is out there in the Clusters. Their cause is out of line, and the citizen's best interests aren't in their plans. They kill, and torture innocent people at will. Gracie didn't have to die, they did that to her. All the people in Clusters that were slaughtered didn't have to meet their fate in that awful way."
“Well if you’re all in, so am I,” he replied.
That was it. They didn't speak for the rest of the night, they just starred at the sky, and wasted away the night. She couldn't help but think about Gracie, and all the people in her Cluster. It was horrible to picture their faces as the walls collapsed, and fires spread. Then she replayed their execution over, and over in her mind. The survivors though that they had escaped the terrible earthquake, but to be shot to death by their own military, that was unfa
thomable.
Later on, they made their way to bed. Jessica was tired and fell asleep very quickly. Lighthearted dreams were dissolved by horrific images of Gracie burning to death. The flames lashed at her pale skin, and she soon charred. Gracie stepped from the fire with her melting burnt flesh. She could see that she is reaching for her. She turned to run, but her feet felt as though as they were in quicksand, and she couldn't get away.
Jessica looked over her shoulder, and Gracie was gone. She turned back to only see that she stood in front of her. Gracie's eyes were black, with no pupils. She raised her right arm and reached towards Jess. Then she whispered hauntingly to her, “I’m all alone Jessica, please come with me.” Then her hand reached for her left side of Jessica's face, immediately her skin started to burn, and she saw as it flaked away, and it becomes ash.
Her body began heating up as it slowly burned. Gracie whispered again to her, “After tomorrow, this will be all you know.” Fear consumed Jess’s entire body to the point where she couldn’t move, she was too frozen with fear. The room she was in catches ablaze. Gracie raised her left arm, and reached for the right side of Jessica's face, her hand was engulfed in flames. Gracie went to touch Jessica's skin, but it's all wiped away, as Andrew awoke her.
“Are you okay Jess,” he asked.
Her pillow was soaked with sweat as she sat up, and swung her feet to the floor. She explained to him that it was just another bad dream, there was nothing to worry about. They talked back, and forth about the mission, as they got ready for day. She slid into The United Front soldier uniforms that they were given by Ethan. It was a camouflaged jumpsuit style uniform with a ball-cap hat. Jess tucked her hair under the cap so not to draw extra attention to her.
Outside the window, the clouds were dark, stormy, and the rain was pouring down. This was the perfect cover that they were looking to have. The smell of the rain at the farmhouse was much different than the smell of rain back at the Cluster. She closed her eyes and just listened. The plops of water hitting the roof, and the wafting smell, took her back to her childhood when she and her sister would play in the rain, and splash in the puddles. Their parents would take them outside to burn off a little energy, and they would let them stay out long enough to see the rainbow after the storm.
A Regressive World: Book One Page 11