Strands of Sorrow

by John Ringo

  Then there was another issue, sort of: it wasn’t bad food. One problem of long duration missions like “being stuck in a bunker in a zombie apocalypse” was called “food ennui.” People just got sick and tired of the same damned crap. They would stop eating and eventually succumb to malnutrition.

  FEMA’s response was to acquire long-duration foodstuffs from, well, all over. Many nations besides the U.S. made long-duration food supplies. And FEMA had a “test and share” program with other nations. There were German rations, British rations—surprisingly good—Indian, French, Chinese, Italian, stuff from Singapore which was . . . all sorts of different nationalities. The Chilean rations included a small bottle of not-bad wine. MREs were right at the bottom of the list.

  The problem was not eating too much. Not enough rations. But they also had to have the energy to run the exercise machines.

  Greatest weight loss program in history. If she ever got out of the damned place she was planning on starting a weight loss program based on it. Her butt was in the best shape it had been in years.

  Of course . . . that was if they ever got out.

  The Marines had had to fight their way in and lost people to bites. Being Marines, as soon as one was bitten, he took the rearguard and stayed. Semper Fi, Marines. Semper damned Fi. They’d also used up most of their ammo. She’d used up all but five rounds for the MP5. The detail was out. Nobody had had the concept of fighting their way into a bunker in the plans. And, honestly, there wasn’t any way to carry enough ammo to fight through all the infected. There were a zillion of the bastards.

  The bunker was hooked into the building’s security feeds. They could see what was happening. Naked zombies just . . . took over. And they were everywhere. In the streets. In the lobbies. In the hallways. In the corridors outside the bunker. The Marines estimated that after a month the LAVs probably wouldn’t start right up. And even if they had enough rounds to get to them . . . where to go? Most of the cameras had failed with the power. The only two remaining, internally powered by the bunker, were outside the main door and the secondary door. They were using the intervening space to hold the bodies of those who turned. After a while they turned off the light at the outer door. There was nothing to see but infected and it was just wasting power. From time to time they turned it on and waited. Eventually, the corridor would fill with infected. They timed it and started to get a feel for how bad it was. At first the corridor filled in less than five minutes. After six months, it was up to ten. And so on. That was all the intel they had. Still far too many to attempt a breakout even if they knew where to break out to.

  The bunker was supposed to have continuous communications. No joy. All the comms were down. Damaged, inoperable or nobody on the other end, nobody knew. They couldn’t even get anything from the radios on the roof. As far as they could tell, they were the only remaining humans on the planet. Well, sentient, uninfected, humans. There were plenty of the other kind.

  * * *

  “Is someone humming?” Rebecca asked calmly, looking up from her iPad. Fortunately, she had thousands of books stored on the device. And she finally had all the time to read that she could possibly want.

  Humming was verboten. Lots of things were verboten. She blessed the fact that they had chosen the FEMA bunker. Everyone, the Marines, the detail, her own family and the FEMA people understood the importance of allowing people their personal space in both body and other forms. They couldn’t continuously take showers but people maintained hygiene. They might talk but they used “inside” voice. They didn’t hum. Singing was only for the few, including Rebecca and Sherry, with really good voices and only as part of a group thing that was planned. You didn’t do things that might annoy others. It was too tight. Everyone not only “hot-bunked” but “hot-sat.” There weren’t enough horizontal spaces, even on the floor, for everyone. And everyone understood that.

  “It’s more of a rumble, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Jason Cordova said musingly. The staff sergeant, NCOIC of the detail supporting the Secret Service in extracting the Vice President, was one of the survivors. Which had been a good thing. He had a font of good jokes which had taken a while to come out. Things had just been too damned grim for too many months.

  It was one year and three days from the date the President had announced the Plague. They had been in the bunker just over ten months with no clue what was going on except the slow and unsteady decrease in infected drawn to a light like moths.

  Whatever it was, it shortly went away.

  “Do an exterior infected count,” Rebecca said, looking back to her book.

  Special Agent Phillips flipped on the exterior light and waited. And waited . . . And waited . . .

  Rebecca was trying not to be too curious. Everyone was acting as if they were doing something else.

  “We have full corridor, ma’am,” Phillips reported. “Thirty minutes.”

  “That’s a big change from just last month,” Rebecca said.

  “Not enough of a change to break out, ma’am,” Phillips said, turning off the light.

  * * *

  There was another rumble, closer, the next day. This time Phillips got out a stethoscope and applied it to the bunker wall.

  “Tracked vehicles,” he said, pulling the phones out of his ears. “Staff Sergeant?”

  “Tracked vehicles,” Cordova confirmed. “Fading. Wait . . .”

  Everyone in the room heard the thump. It was faint, but you could feel it through your bones.

  “Main gun on an Abrams would be my guess,” Cordova said, grinning. “Maybe a Paladin. But I’d guess main gun on an Abrams, ma’am.”

  “Someone is clearing the city,” she said, smiling. “’Bout time. Special Agent Phillips. I want a daily check on infected numbers.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  There were rumbles, some distant, some closer, for several days. Although the time for the corridor to fill dropped to nearly forty minutes, other than the first big drop it didn’t drop much. And that was still too many to make a breakout.

  Then the rumbles stopped. And there were still infected.

  “It’s possible that they have essentially cleared the streets but the tunnels remain inhabited,” Phillips said. “Or that they are clearing buildings or bunkers. It may be some time before they get here.”

  “At a certain point, we’re going to be out of food,” VP Staba said. “We will go to heavier rations for the Marines, detail with the exception of Special Agent Bryant—sorry, Maryann, but melee truly is a man’s game—and . . . Misters Kraznewski and Flaherty. Those persons will begin working out and training on hand-to-hand. We will secure every bit of coverage for them we can and if push comes to shove . . . we’ll melee our way out. These things don’t use weapons. We’ll be tool users even if it’s a crowbar. Everyone will arm themselves and fight as well as they can. We’ll get up on the roof and signal for help. Modified ration schedule now; two weeks and we break out. It is that or starve to death.”

  “Understood, ma’am,” Phillips said.

  “Oorah, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Cordova said, grinning.

  * * *

  It had been a week and a half with no sign of rescue. Daily they checked the infected density. If anything, it had gone up but that might just be because they were turning the light on every day. Which would make getting out trickier. The zombies were going to be waiting for them.

  They’d decided on a plan of heavy firepower at the beginning. Blast through the ones nearest the bunker, then work their way to the stairs. Marines would lead the way with the detail and two of the biggest FEMA guys either interspersed or at the rear. The bunker contained some full-coverage “silver suits” that the fighters would wear to protect from bites. Rebecca had pointedly refused them even for her family. They went to the people most in harm’s way.

  Quietly, they had discussed the likelihood of surviving the breakout and it didn’t look good. The infected showed no signs of leaving the under
ground areas and there were tunnels from FEMA to other basements. They would come flooding in at the first attempt to break out. And the people in the bunker didn’t have any really good melee weapons except one clearance tool.

  But it was the only reasonable option. That or cannibalism, which had been discussed. In retrospect, they should have eaten the people who turned. They had microwaves.

  They’d all decided trying to break out, even if the chances were low, was the better alternative. There were fewer infected. It might work. Might.

  “Freeze,” Sherry said.

  There had been a lot of cross-training in the bunker. The Marines had shared their experience and training. The FEMA guys and gals were managers but had all spent time in the field and had their own training and experience. Even the detail had opened up about personal protection. So everyone knew what “freeze” meant. And did.

  “I hear something,” Sherry said. “Stethoscope?”

  Phillips applied it to the wall and frowned.

  “You try,” he said, offering it to the girl.

  “Something,” she whispered. “Tracked vehicle I think. But . . . it stopped. It didn’t fade. Just stopped. Now all I can hear is something . . . odd and you guys. Wait . . . that’s . . . You?” she said, offering it to Jerry again.

  Jerry listened carefully, then shook his head.

  “I don’t know what that is,” he said. “Maybe . . . I think it might be lots of infected moving . . . could be massed running . . . Wait . . . There’s thumps . . .”

  * * *

  “More grenades, Staff Sergeant!” Faith shouted, pulling the pin on two M87s and tossing them through the crack on the hatch one after the other.

  “Aye, aye, ma’am!” Decker said, pulling more out of her rucksack.

  They’d managed to fight their way to the building security station and get the hatch jammed against the infected. There was a shit-pot of them, though. Not like London but they only had two people.

  The security station had been a nice secure point. The hatch was sturdy and they had it nicely blocked. Gave them time to water up, get a map, find the location of the bunker and reammo. Now all they had to do was get out of the room.

  She leaned back as fragments pinged into the room. Not many, though. They were being caught by the bodies of infected blocking the hatch.

  “We will eventually kill enough we can get out,” Faith said.

  “Oorah, ma’am,” Decker said, handing her two more grenades, one at a time. “Caution. Pins are pulled, ma’am.”

  “Thanks for that helpful safety tip, Staff Sergeant . . .”

  * * *

  “Lots of grenades,” Staff Sergeant Cordova said. “Has to be. More . . . More . . . Jesus. Somebody believes in peace through superior firepower . . . It’s stopped.”

  “I think we should be prepared to break out,” Staba said. “Fighters, rig up.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Cordova said. “Let’s get it on!”

  * * *

  “You ever see the movie Predator, Staff Sergeant?” Faith shouted over the fire.

  They were getting hit from both directions. Wave after wave of infected. They barely had time to reload. And the basement of FEMA was flooded. Really rancid water, too.

  The only thing that was allowing them to move forward was her Saiga. And she was running out of pre-loaded magazines. She’d also carefully avoided dropping her pistols. She wasn’t going to go fumbling for them in the water.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Decker said, drawing his 1911 and firing carefully.

  “That scene where Jesse Ventura fires up the trees with the minigun,” Faith said, drawing her chest pistol. “Zumwald told me that was live. They didn’t use ‘squibs,’ whatever those are; they just fired the minigun. I should have seen one of those Navy nukes about getting a shotgun minigun!”

  “That would have been useful about now, ma’am,” Decker said.

  “After we find the President,” Faith said, holstering the gun. “Assuming we don’t get court-martialed. Need to reload.”

  “Roger, ma’am,” Decker said, stepping backwards carefully so they were beside each other.

  Faith dipped into his pack and started pulling out magazines, sliding them into pouches and weapons. The bottom of the pack was filled with ammo but the top was filled with pre-loads. On the other hand . . . She ran out of Saiga pre-loads before she got all her magazines filled.

  A couple of infected had trotted up while she’d been loading. She took them off-hand and kept on going. Decker was dipping into her backpack at the same time, switching empty M4 mags for full.

  “We gotta move before they cluster again,” Faith said. “Right up ahead if I’m reading the map correctly.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Decker said, firing at an incoming infected.

  “Let’s roll . . .”

  * * *

  “The man trap where the bodies are is going to be an almost zero oxygen environment by now,” FEMA Deputy Director John Rossman said. “If we aerate it, we’ll temporarily overload our own filters. We can do that but it cuts down on our air time. I know we’re breaking out but . . . air is air. You’ll need to use the air pak to move forward. If we open up both doors, we’ll get air from both directions and it will clear. But not until then.”

  Staff Sergeant Cordova was moving forward to try to hear if there was any sign of movement in their direction and getting a safety brief from the director.

  “Roger, sir,” Cordova said, his voice muffled by the air pack and silver suit.

  “Good luck, Staff Sergeant,” Rebecca said as a phone rang.

  “Or not,” Phillips said, picking up the red phone and keying on the external light and camera.

  There were two people in what looked like fire-fighter bunker suits and just covered in weapons at the external phone. The one with the phone to his ear was firing a pistol off-camera one-handed.

  “HELLO! HELLO! TELL ME SOMEBODY’S IN THERE!”

  “This is Special Agent Jerome Phillips,” Phillips said. “Who is this?”

  “Lieutenant Faith Marie Smith, United States Marine Corps!”

  She momentarily dropped the phone, whipped out a kukri and chopped the neck of a zombie that was clawing at her companion.

  “Open the damned hatch! We need to reammo! Stand by!”

  The woman dropped the phone again, holstered faster than he’d ever seen a detail member manage, pulled out two grenades, one in either hand, pulled the pins, flipped off the spoons, waited a moment then flipped them up and out. Both of the figures scrunched into the water, up against the wall, holding their arms inward.

  “Holy fuck no!” Cordova said. “Sorry for the language, ma’am.”

  “I was thinking much the same thing, Staff Sergeant,” Staba said.

  Both figures stood back up after a moment and the grenade thrower picked up the phone.

  “You’ve got ten seconds and we’re leaving,” the woman said, holding the phone with her head and reloading one of her pistols. It was apparent she’d taken some fragments in her arm. “We cannot hold this position.”

  “Unlock the exterior door,” Staba said.

  “Ma’am,” Phillips replied.

  “Not a request!” Staba said.

  “Unlocking the door,” Phillips said.

  “Vent the mantrap,” Staba added.

  “Already done,” Kraznewski said. He was the official systems engineer for the bunker.

  * * *

  “Thanks so much.”

  The woman on the pickup . . . might be young. Might. It was hard to tell even with the gas mask off. Scarred of face, lined and weary, she had flat, dead, eyes. If the smell in the mantrap bothered her, it wasn’t apparent. It had seeped into the bunker when they vented the environment and it was gagging. It had to be worse in there.

  “I need to see ID,” Phillips said.

  “You want my ID?” the woman said. “Staff Sergeant, turn around.” She reached into the man’s backpack and pulled
out a box of military grade 5.56. “That’s my ID. You want to reammo or not?”

  “I still need to see ID,” Phillips said.

  “Staff Sergeant, did you bring your ID?” the woman asked. “I left mine in my other pants.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Show the jerk your ID.”

  “This will take a moment, sir,” the man said, starting to loosen his gear.

  “Can you give a brief on the exterior conditions?” Phillips asked.

  “Fucked up and then some,” the woman said, pulling more ammo out of the sergeant’s ruck and beginning to reload. “Long damned story. Short version is we were clearing D.C., found the Secretary of Education and she called a halt to all clearance operations. We have to be ‘kinder and gentler to the afflicted’ or some shit. This is a totally illegal and unauthorized operation but the worst they can do is arrest me and my sister, who’s providing top-cover. Besides, my da is already under arrest. If the Prez isn’t in there, we’re fucked. Hell, we’re probably fucked anyway. Not a big fan. If he’s listening . . . still not a big fan. Don’t give a fuck. Whatever.”

  Rebecca leaned forward and pressed the talk button.

  “The President isn’t,” Staba said. “The Vice President is.”

  “REALLY?” the, definitely young, woman said with a squeal. “I’m, like, your BIGGEST fan!”

  “Open the door, Jerry,” Staba said. “I think we’ll be okay.”

  * * *

  “Holy shit, it really is you!” Faith said then threw a salute. “Madame Vice President! Lieutenant Faith Marie Smith with a party of one! Permit me to introduce Staff Sergeant Alfred J. Decker, U-S-M-C, who has previously been declared totally bughouse due to PTSD and therefore is not responsible for his actions in this matter, ma’am!”

  “I take it the President is missing or dead?” Staba said, returning the salute.

  “MIA, ma’am,” Faith said. “You’re the highest ranking official we’ve found, ma’am.”