Out Of The Fire

by Heath Stallcup

  Captain Andrews sat at a computer terminal in the green tent that housed his ‘office.’ His pressurized suit was unzipped and hanging from a peg in the corner, his helmet discarded haphazardly at the foot of the suit. He sat arguing with the image on the screen of his computer, growing more impatient by the moment.

  “I don’t see why you won’t come down here Viv. I’m telling you, this is it!”

  “And I’m telling you it can’t be!” Dr. LaRue argued. “Joseph, the virus we found in the Neanderthal mitochondria was degraded and ancient. There is no way it could have travelled half-way around the world and not mutated.”

  “Darling, that’s what I’m trying to explain. I honestly believe that this is Archaea. It makes total sense if you think about it, a thermophilic archaea? Where else could it live and sustain itself than in thermal vents? And what is Yellowstone covered in?” he posited. “Listen, they’ve found others here before. True, most were bacteria, but who’s to say there weren’t viruses as well?”

  Vivian sat back in her chair and stared at the image on the computer screen. “I should mention this to Neils.”

  “No!” Joseph sat up and picked up his computer. “He’s a peacenik, and he’d never understand our work,” he said rapidly. He carried the laptop to the door of the tent and peered out, then closed it. “Viv, I am so close to this, I can taste it. We can both prove our thesis and show the world,” he whispered. “You can prove that the DNA you extracted was real and that the results you predicted were right. I’m seeing those results right here, right now,” he whispered excitedly. “Extreme fevers, swollen brains, the blood pooling in the orbital sockets, the delirium, the extreme aggression, it’s all present.”

  Vivian pulled her computer screen forward again and sighed. “You’re sure? You’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”

  Andrews ran his hand through his non-regulation hair and sighed. “We’re about to conduct some tests.”

  “What kind of tests?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “The military officers are demanding the tests be done,” he lied. “They want to know the timeline of the vector. The infection’s transition rate.”

  “Joseph, what animals are you testing on?” Her eyes slowly widened.

  Andrews wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Humans.”

  “Oh, my God!” She pushed away from the desk, knocking the computer aside. “How can you go along with this?”

  Andrews rolled his eyes and looked away. “If I don’t, they’ll force somebody else. At least this way we can—”

  “It’s murder, Joseph! We both know the end result of this. It’s death. There’s nothing that can fight this infection!”

  He picked up his computer angrily and shook it. “Look at me!” he yelled. “Look at me, dammit!”

  She slowly stepped back in front of the camera and he stared at her. “This will be done, with or without me. Understand that,” he lied again. “At least if I’m here, I can document the results and prove our theories.”

  “I don’t understand why you would want me there,” she said, her voice void of all emotion.

  “Because I could use your help. To prove both of our theories…” He threw his hands in the air. “Your reputation will remain intact. There is an outbreak here and we are studying the infected.” He looked up and met her gaze. “If you like, you can limit your activities to only those who are already infected.”

  She studied him a moment, then shook her head. “I suppose, if nothing else, I could be a witness to what is going on.”

  “Yes, you could,” he replied, thrilled that she would be joining him. “How soon can you be here?”

  “I’m supposed to lecture at the University of Arizona today, but…” she glanced at her watch. “I can be at the air base in a couple of hours. Maybe less. Can you have a transport ready?”

  “Ready and waiting.” A smile formed across his face. “And here you thought we could have a simple vacation.”

  “Not a working vacation, Joseph. Level-four protocols, I presume?”

  “As best we can provide out here in the woods. We’ll provide whatever you decide you need.”

  “I’ll see you in a few hours.” She closed her notebook.

  Bill crested a hill and saw a military checkpoint ahead. A lone soldier stood in the middle of the road ahead of the checkpoint and held his hand in the air, motioning for the car to stop. He immediately slowed the car, uttering a string of curses under his breath.

  He turned to Jason. “Why didn’t you warn me, boy? We might could have avoided them.”

  Jason shrugged. “It don’t always work.” He stared up at Bill with red-rimmed eyes. “I might coulda saved my Gram if it did.”

  That one simple statement hit Bill hard as the words sunk in. He glanced to the rearview mirror and saw Richard slowly close his eyes, shaking his head. He was all too familiar with the knife slicing his guts at the moment. Although he wished he had time to console his friend, he had to try to deal with the military ahead of them.

  Bill stopped just short of the soldier and the man in uniform approached, rifle at the ready, “Where are you folks headed?”

  Bill smiled and nodded toward Jason. “Just taking my nephew home. He came out to visit for a while and we’re taking him back to his dad’s.”

  The soldier cast a disbelieving eye at the group and then back along the road. “At this hour?”

  Bill never missed a beat. “It’s a pretty long drive. Wanted to get an early start and beat the traffic if we could.”

  “Traffic? Out here?” The soldier stiffened.

  Bill’s face puckered and shook his head. “Of course not!” He almost called him a moron. “In the city. We didn’t want to get there at rush hour and be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic if we could avoid it.”

  “Well, the road is closed,” the soldier stated. “In fact, all of the roads in and out of Yellowstone are closed.”

  “Yeah, but, we’re not going to Yellowstone. We’re going away from Yellowstone. We just need to drive about a quarter mile further on this road to where it T’s out so we can get away from here.”

  The soldier leaned down and grimaced at Bill, doing his best to be intimidating. “I said, the road is closed.” He took care to emphasize each word.

  Bill simply nodded. “Okay, then. Any idea how we can get back to the highway then?”

  “Not my problem.”

  Bill paused and actually considered confronting the young man, asking him if he had ever heard of the United States Constitution or the Posse Comitatus Act, but thought better of it as the young man brought the rifle to bear on the vehicle once more. “You need to turn the car around, old timer,” he said dismissively as he turned away.

  Bill’s blood boiled with the ‘old timer’ remark. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Richard pleading at him with his eyes. “Don’t,” he whispered.

  Bill’s hand was just going to the door handle when his eyes fell on a commotion beyond the young soldier. In the early morning sunlight, Bill could see people sprinting up the road toward the military road block. The soldiers had their eyes on the Buick and never saw the sprinters coming. Bill tapped his horn and pointed behind the soldier, but the soldier’s attention was all on Bill.

  “I thought I told you to turn this shit heap around?”

  “Hey look, pup,” Bill began smartly, “our finding the highway might not be your problem, but maybe they are.” He pointed behind the soldier. “I don’t think they care that the road is closed.”

  The young man smiled at him knowingly. “I may be young, pops, but I’m not stupid,” he said slowly and quietly. “I’m not falling for a sucker punch.” He stepped away from the car and squared off. “Step out of the vehicle.”

  Bill shook his head. “I don’t think so, sonny. Your buddies may need your help.” Bill pointed again.

  The soldier chanced a quick glance down the road and caught sight of the sprinters just as they hit the rear of the road block. He
tried to scream to get their attention, but it was too late. The infected were upon them. Screams of soldiers mixed with quick bursts of automatic weapons fire and the howls of the infected.

  Richard tapped Bill on the shoulder. “Maybe we ought to go the long way,” he breathed quietly.

  “I think I can get through while they’re distracted.”

  “No!” Jason and Richard both exclaimed, anxious to turn around and head in the other direction.

  Bill threw the car into reverse and made a four point turn around on the narrow-paved road. The front tires spun slightly in the loose gravel by the side of the road as he accelerated away from the scene and he pushed the Buick to its limits. “I think they’re even more frightening in the daylight.”

  “Yeah, because you can see them coming,” Richard agreed.

  “They’re mad because it hurts,” Jason said quietly, staring out the window.

  Bill slowed the Buick and cast a quick glance at the boy. “What’s that? How can you know all this stuff, kid?”

  Jason shrugged as he continued to stare out the window at the passing trees. “I just do.”

  Richard tapped Bill’s shoulder and pointed to a narrow road on their left. “It’s not in the best of shape, but if you take it slow, we should make it to the highway.”

  “Without four-wheel drive?” he asked, his attention pulled from the small boy and his odd ability. “This thing doesn’t exactly have the ground clearance of your truck.”

  “If you take it slow we should be okay. The county maintains the road,” Richard replied.

  Bill slowed the car and took the turn, noting the broken pavement quickly turned into a dirt road, ruts and potholes a plenty. He slowed the vehicle more and navigated between the obstacles as best he could. “How far to the highway?” Bill bounced as the Buick scraped bottom on a particularly rough section.

  “Couple of miles, if memory serves. It’s been a while since I’ve been down this way.” Richard glanced back behind them nervously.

  “Relax. We left them munching on MREs,” Bill muttered, observing Richard’s nervous behavior.

  “I can’t help feeling like they’re everywhere,” Richard replied.

  “We’ll be fine once we hit the highway and put this place in our mirrors.” He navigated the Buick between two more potholes and accelerated slightly only to see Jason throw his hands up against the window just before something solid slammed into the side of the car. “What the—” Bill exclaimed, swerving.

  A body bounced off the rear fender and rolled into the road, quickly gaining his feet under him and scrambling to catch the car. Bill saw the man’s face in the rear window and pushed the accelerator harder.

  “Up ahead,” Richard groaned.

  Bill looked up and slammed on the brakes, the infected man pursuing them slamming hard into the rear of the Buick’s tailgate. Bill quickly threw the car into reverse and began backing up, oblivious to the infected man behind him. Looking over his shoulder and peering out of the stained rear window, he felt the car rise and fall as it crunched over something large, four infected quickly gaining on them from the front.

  “You better hurry,” Richard said as he peered over Bill’s shoulder and stared out of the windshield.

  “I need a place to turn around! “

  Bill finally found a place where the narrow road appeared wide enough to handle the SUV and he spun the wheel, slamming on the brakes, and throwing the gear selector into drive at the same time. The motor gunned as the front tires spun in the soft dirt, then caught and shot them in the direction they had just come from. The first of their pursuers had caught up to them and grasped at the rear window wiper, ripping it from the mount as he fell to the ground.

  “This isn’t going to be smooth,” Bill shouted as he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  “Just get us out of here!”

  The little Buick bounced and scraped along the dirt road, suspension bottoming out as it pitched from pothole to pothole, rut to rut, and slid in the soft dirt of the barely maintained road. “I thought the county kept this road up?” Bill asked as he fought the wheel.

  “They keep fallen trees cleared off it mostly,” Richard shot back. “Hardly anybody uses it.”

  “Of course not,” Bill muttered. “Cutbacks in the outback.”

  As the Buick neared the paved road, Bill slowed down and the Buick bounced the passengers along the broken pavement. Bill edged the nose up to the road and checked for traffic. He quickly pulled the car onto the paved road and pressed the pedal to the floor; infected soldiers and campers sprinted up the road after them.

  Bill looked at Richard in the mirror, his eyes full of one all-important question. “Tell me there’s another way off this mountain.”

  Colonel Vickers had headed out before daybreak in a light chopper for an overhead view of what his men were facing. The number of bodies being returned to the makeshift camp simply weren’t adding up compared to the number of vehicles cited, and he wanted a firsthand view of what was being reported. Donning the helmet that allowed him to see what the IR cameras captured, he could discern a number of heat signatures in the woods; most burned much brighter than others and from what he had gathered from Andrews, the infected should burn brighter. Their body temperatures should skyrocket, their brains would swell, they would undergo a transformation that, for all intents and purposes, would make them appear feral.

  As the chopper climbed higher and Vickers got a better view, he was beginning to see just how spread out the infected were. While his soldiers were hunting them in standard formations, the infected were out hunting the uninfected and wildlife in small packs or single units. He sighed as he realized that standard military tactics simply weren’t going to work.

  He keyed his mic and told the pilot, “Take me back.”

  He sat back in his seat and tried to think. This situation was worse than trying to ferret out insurgents in some damned cave. You could always bomb the entrance to the cave and starve them out or cut off their oxygen supply or simply cave it in. No, these damned things could scatter to parts unknown. If just one of the infected got through his nets…got into a heavily populated area, it would spread like wildfire. Vickers shivered at the thought.

  True, they wanted to weaponize the virus, but not to be used on U.S. soil. It was to be used on somebody else. Somebody not American. Infect an enemy nation and let them deal with their own population and stop being a threat to us. At least, that was the plan as he knew it.

  Vickers shook his head and made the decision. He needed more troops. His ghost unit was effective, but couldn’t possibly cover the area necessary in the time they had. He needed something that could wipe them all out quickly, before they spread. If only this was Buttcrackistan, he could…yes, he could. He could order up a tactical strike.

  A Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) or Mother of All Bombs, dropped right here. The blast should be sufficient to level the area, the concussion would kill anything living, kick up enough soil and debris to effectively bury the evidence and not put any more troops at risk.

  Vickers felt his heart race as he considered the risky proposition…how could he convince his bosses that it was necessary? Could he convince them? The populace wouldn’t have to know that it was the military. Yellowstone is quite active. There have been theories of how it could ‘blow’ at any time. Perhaps they could spin it that it was a minor volcanic eruption. Somehow the volcano erupted, but just enough to blow off pressure here?

  Well, that was for the spin masters. He just had to sell the idea. Vickers looked up from his hands and saw the chopper settling in near the station, dust already rising from the blades. He unbuckled his seat belt and prepared to depart as the chopper set down. As the door slid open on the side of the chopper, he stepped out and ignored the salute of the soldier standing next to him. He had a phone call to make and higher ups to convince that it was time to blow up Yellowstone.

  Chapter 7

  Bob practically
fell out of the wrecked motorcoach. His hands collapsed under him, embedded with bits of sharp stone and gravel from the road as his body collapsed on top of them, the air forcefully pushed from his lungs. He rolled to his side and groaned in pain. He felt so weak, but his rage fueled him. He lay on the dry dirt road, letting his anger build to give him the energy to pick himself up, reliving the horror of seeing Keri’s body, prone in the rear of the RV, her head split open from the soldier’s bullets.

  He pushed himself up from the road and leaned against the coach until the fuzziness in his head cleared. It was only then that he saw the mayhem that had taken place outside the coach. The bodies ripped to shreds from the high-powered rifles of the soldiers were beginning to sour. The brownish stains of blood and gore splattered across the side of the coach and pieces of human flesh that lay scattered across the roadside were attracting insects on a level that Bob didn’t think possible.

  In the early morning sunlight, Bob fought not to gag as he pulled his bloodstained shirt up over his mouth and covered his nose. The smell of bodily excretions was almost enough to make him vomit, and the sight of his shoes squishing through bits of flesh and fluid-filled innards was almost his undoing, but he choked the bile back down and forced his feet to continue their march. He knew that staying where he was would do him no good, and he had to get started.

  Bob staggered toward the line of cars and used them to assist him in his walking. Using them as a crutch, he began the trek down the dusty road and toward the ranger station that he knew he had passed on his way up to the hot springs. Every once in a while, he’d check a door on a car, just to see if some moron had perhaps left his car unlocked and maybe left the keys in it. The line of vehicles was so long. He knew the odds were against him, but it only took one.

  The early morning sky was quickly turning lighter and the shadows that hid everything from view were slowly receding. The trees were becoming less ominous, the low brush providing fewer dark hiding places. Bob had never been much of a praying man, but he found himself asking whatever powers that be, Please, don’t let the zombies get me before I can get my revenge.