Of Sudden Origin

by C. Chase Harwood

  Nikki pointed to another pair of men in Army fatigues working on the far backside of the building. They were placing something on the ground and carefully attaching some kind of cable to it. “Trip wires,” she said. “They’re placing anti-personnel mines around the building.”

  Several more men were finishing the installation of a barbed wire fence. Beyond that, mounds of fresh sawdust and bright yellow stumps evidenced the recent clear cutting of the surrounding forest, leaving a two hundred yard killing zone around the whole complex. At its edge the forest was thick and green with new leaves covering a dense, fern laden, mossy floor. The backhoe driver was guarded by a well-armed man who scanned the forest with binoculars and occasionally stomped his feet to keep warm.

  The razor wire around the enclosure was doubled in a way that precluded Jon from climbing up and lying across it as he had at the police lot. As prisons go, this was a pretty good one. As he and Nikki circled the wire they found themselves back at the main entrance, as their fellow prisoners lined up for dinner.

  A pickup truck with three well-armed guards backed up to the gate. One kept his weapon trained on the prisoners while the other two dropped the tailgate and dragged out a large stockpot full of steaming food. They unlocked the gate and without a word, exchanged the pot for a now empty one handed off by Will.

  The stockpot contained a beef stew. Jon guessed it had been in cans only a little earlier. It was hot though, and the first real cooked meal that he’d have in quite some time. His tongue and cheeks swelled with saliva in a painful way as he anticipated the first taste. As the food settled in his stomach, he found that his thinking was becoming clearer and his general perception of his surroundings got brighter.

  A woman in her early thirties wearing a goose down coat with a mass of unwashed locks slid over next to Jon and Nikki. She was dragging a pair of crutches with her, leaning them against the table. Her eyes were bright with unspoken words, yet she hesitated, letting her mouth run slack.

  Jon said, “Hello.”

  Nikki nodded to the woman, who finally spoke with a whisper. “I didn’t say that I wouldn’t cooperate.”

  A man in blue mechanic’s coveralls broke in, “Don’t bother with Kathy. She thinks we’re just bait.”

  “I wasn’t speaking with you, was I, David Miller?” She turned back to Jon and Nikki. “I volunteered to help Major Deighton, but I’ve got a bad leg. Skiing accident back in December, when all of this was in Florida.”

  Jon, not sure how to respond, offered, “I’m sorry.”

  “My bad leg keeps me from being as useful on the outside as I can be on the inside.”

  “How’s that?” asked Nikki.

  “On the inside, I’m bait.”

  Jon looked at her sideways, “What would be the point of that? The infected need no bait. If they see or smell, or however they can tell that you’ve got a healthy beating heart, you’re lunch.”

  Nikki piped in, “Maybe he stuck you in here, because he doesn’t want an invalid slowing down the construction.”

  “If that’s true,” Kathy responded, “then why not let me leave, take my car up to Canada?” She pointed to a line of stakes with orange tape on them that led across the muddy grass surrounding the power plant. “Look where the stakes lead.”

  They bypassed the cage and continued around the building.

  Nikki stood and scanned it more carefully. “This prison is on the outside of the new fence and trench.”

  Jon stood and looked himself. “Well, that’s not good.” He looked at two men on the roof of the power plant sighting a big machine gun. “Easier to pick them off if they bunch up around a cage full of us.”

  Kathy said, “No one listens to me. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

  David Miller said, “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Me either,” said Will who had been listening in.

  Jon asked, “What about some of the other citizens outside? I mean they can’t all be for this. Maybe they don’t know the plan. Can we appeal to someone? Are any of the guards friendly?”

  Will said, “They’re the least friendly. If anybody is in on this, it’s the guys building up this site and the ones bringing us food and water. There’s about fifty or sixty armed people here, but most have nothing to do with us. We’re isolated.”

  They were startled by a gunshot, which was followed by another. A lone male Fiend came running out of the woods and one of the fence builders was on a knee shooting. Then maybe twenty more infected charged out following the first.

  Kathy offered an involuntary scream.

  The backhoe driver let the tractor idle and stood up to join the rest, shooting with precise three round bursts. Several Fiends made it as far as the trench and the soldiers hollered a rebel yell as they shot down into the hole. On the roof, one soldier yelled at another who simply held onto the fifty-caliber machine gun and stared in horror. The yeller shoved the man aside and cocked the big gun. With ground shaking power, the soldier lit up the last of the charging Fiends, blowing them to pieces all over the freshly cut tree stumps. The whole event lasted less than a minute.

  Later, after they'd piled up what they could, a squad went out and doused the remains with gasoline, setting it all alight. The smoke from the burning flesh passed right through the prisoner’s cage causing them to cover their faces with their blankets as they gagged and retched.

  When the sun started to go down, they could make out the first wave of military aircraft flying overhead from the North. Bombers and fighters stretched out to the horizon. Jon knew vaguely the number of planes that the US combined forces had on the continent. This was far more. NATO aircraft had apparently joined the fight. The soldiers let out a cheer and the prisoners found themselves joining in. The exterminator was visiting New England. Misplaced or not, the prisoners felt some hope for the first time in five months.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Touch-And-Go

  An hour before the Chinooks were to land in Fort Detrick, Maryland, an F-22 Raptor had flown over and dropped two nerve gas bombs, saturating the landing area in deadly poison. The pilot had seen some Fiend activity on the outskirts of the base, but she ignored them, continuing with her mission to drop two more bombs on the next refueling base at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. She had little fear of injuring any uninfected personnel. Both bases had been thoroughly evacuated during the Exodus. Of course there was always the chance that civilians had taken up refuge (the typical barriers around a military base being quite a deterrent to even a highly determined Fiend), but that wasn’t the pilot’s job to worry about.

  Fort Jackson was located right next to the city of Columbia, which to her astonishment, was still on fire. She marveled at the power of kinetic energy; it’s ability to render to dust in a few short moments, that which took decades, centuries to build. As Lieutenant Reese Tilden released the second set of bombs, the dull gray that signaled the approach of dawn gave her a brief moment to observe the ground. A gated and heavily fenced tank depot was completely surrounded by Fiends. There was a small building inside with the words HELP painted in bright white on the roof. Clearly someone or a group of someones had taken refuge inside.

  She could radio the information in, but there was little to no chance that these folks would get a rescue. They’d have to wait it out for the re-invasion. Of course that meant that they would be long dead or infected.

  Deciding to say to hell with protocol, she banked around for another look, reduced her speed and got lower. Sure enough there were people now standing on top of the roof and waving sheets. Fiends were throwing themselves against the fence, many entangling themselves in the razor wire. She could make out the muzzle flashes of a few weapons coming from the building. Heck, her cannon was all loaded up. No point in wasting good fuel bringing all that depleted uranium back to Canada. She’d have to file an action report, but her gun camera would support her decision. She banked again, armed her weapon and came in low.

  The F-22 o
nly carries 480 rounds, giving the M61A2 Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon about 5 seconds of sustained fire. Lieutenant Tilden made two passes, firing her gun for two and a half seconds each. Perhaps fifty Fiends were shredded into hamburger and she was gone, happy that she had at least helped a little. What she couldn’t know is that the Vulcan also decimated the fencing, leaving at least two hundred Fiends who had avoided the meat grinder to pour inside.

  At least the defenders wouldn’t face starvation…

  Fort Detrick, Maryland was the center for the US biological weapons program until 1969 when President Richard Nixon signed an executive order outlawing offensive biological weapons research in the United States. After that it became the center for ‘defensive’ biological weapons research. Tran found it sort of ironic that the place was soaked with nerve agent. The Chinooks took two wide circles over the helipad before landing. There were a few bodies on the outskirts of the fort as well as several on the roof of one building. The people on the roof appeared to be refugees who had picked a bad place to hunker down; their twisted forms covered in their own vomit, told the tale of a grisly end via nerve gas. The other bodies outside the grounds exhibited the same postures, but were more than likely Fiends.

  Not a soul on either helicopter felt free from remorse for the refugees. Their mission had killed healthy people. It was horrible. Ghost crossed himself, pulled out a small crucifix from his shirt and kissed it.

  Before they landed, Captain O’Shea’s voice came over the loudspeakers for both birds. “Okay, people, suit up. We land. The refueling teams do their work. Everyone else stays on board. No sightseeing. Gunners keep your eyes peeled.”

  Both the troopers and the scientists had their chemical suits on in moments. All had been through the drill countless times and it went without a hitch. Several Rangers looked at their civilian counterparts with partial envy. The portability and rigorous construction necessary for the Army JSLIST chemical warfare suit consisted of a relatively comfortable coverall but the M-40 gas mask was a sweaty affair with limited peripheral vision. A person could get quite warm in hot conditions, risking significant dehydration. The scientist’s Tychem suits, on the other hand, took in the need for maximum movement and sensory awareness; though big and rubbery, they had large hoods with big face shields and a corresponding breathing mask offering a wide field of view. They were also fluorescent yellow - basically saying to a potential Fiend: Pick me.

  The Chinooks landed without incident. Two teams of three soldiers hopped out to retrieve the refueling trucks and begin the fill-up. Other than the ticking of the cooling engines and hustle of the working crew, it was a very quiet place, almost like time stood still. There were no birds, no insects, and no breeze to fill the void. Everything in earshot was either dead or gone, the only steady sound… humans breathing into gas masks. The daylight even seemed different. Though it was gray and overcast, the air seemed to have an extra glow to it. It gave Tran the creeps and he chocked it up to an overactive imagination, maybe the reflective nature of his Tychem suit. He looked across at Susan who smiled and winked at him.

  That was just like her to offer reassurance in a moment like this. He had come to love his boss. She was tough but fair. Her willingness to listen to opposing points of view and alter her own in the face of a good argument, was what made her leadership stand out. He was lucky to work for her – not at the moment, doing the most dangerous thing he’d ever done – but in general. He couldn’t imagine working for someone better.

  After the refuel team hosed and scrubbed their JLIST suits off, the Chinooks wound up and took off again without incident. The relief was palpable as everyone loosened their gear and removed their gas masks. But for small asides and a few raw jokes at infected human’s expense, for the next four hours, no one really spoke. The plan was to refuel again at Fort Jackson and hopefully bunk down for the night in one of the fort’s bomb shelters. The thinking was that a shelter would be free of any gas contamination and the continued presence of nerve agent spread all over the landing area would keep the possibility of a Fiend assault low. Captain O’Shea had been given word, via the F-22 pilot, that there could be healthy people holed up in one of the vehicle depots, but those were on the opposite side of the fort from where they were landing. His orders were to approach from the city side, refuel, sleep and bug out at dawn. By no means were they to make their presence known to any refugees. The mission was too critical for arguments about rescues.

  Ten miles before their next landing, the pilots moved down to treetop level. Fort Jackson shared its eastern side with the city of Columbia. Per the briefing, the metropolis was a smoldering ruin. Major buildings were scorched and blackened while whole suburban neighborhoods were burned to the ground. Thunderclouds were rolling in and already a light mist fell over parts of the city. The late afternoon sunlight that still broke through the clouds filled the streets with smoky shadows. The air was pungent with the chemical concoction of an immolated modern society. The people in the helicopters were grateful to put their gas masks back on. A population of infected seemed to still roam about. Several Fiends came running out of intact houses and gave hopeless chase to the big birds.

  When the Chinooks crossed the boundary fence at the edge of the fort, all seemed suddenly peaceful. Supposedly, with the personnel evacuated and therefore no healthy people to hunt down and kill, Fort Jackson was an oasis.

  It, and the female It hunted with, watched the big machines fly past the trees in the distance. It was feeling gorged as It sucked marrow out of the picked clean femur that It had just cracked open with the ax that It carried. The female’s face and chest were red with fresh blood and that gave It an erection when It looked at her. There were many Others around them. They all fed on the Fresh Ones that had been in the building with the big machines.

  A few of the Fresh Ones had climbed inside one of the machines and locked the hatches. Lots of Others stood around it, waiting for them to come out. It knew from experience that the Fresh Ones probably wouldn’t. It had waited for five sunsets and sunrises for some Fresh Ones to come out of a locked room until It finally got too hungry and left.

  Normally they would fuck after eating like this, Others joining in as well, but the female that It hunted with nodded at the machines flying past the trees. There would be Fresh Ones in there too. So It followed her, along with some Others. It wasn’t hungry, but It nevertheless felt a strong compulsion to track the new Fresh Ones down.

  Everyone snugged up their chem suits as they came in for the landing. The area was clear of Fiend activity and the troops and scientists leisurely disgorged from the helicopters.

  The scientists stretched and looked around while the Rangers quickly broke into squads with orders to set-up and guard the perimeter as the fuel handlers did their work. The base’s bomb shelters were located adjacent to the landing pads under a series of earth-covered mounds. Captain O’Shea directed Corporal Cavanaugh’s squad to secure one of them and ordered the scientists to follow. When the group reached the first shelter, they all stopped in their tracks. The door wasn’t sealed. Five Fiends lay dead outside, their twisted and contorted bodies showing signs of the nerve gas poisoning. The door was covered in bloody handprints. Cavanaugh radioed O’Shea .

  The Captain touched his mic, “What do you see Corporal?”

  “I see Deadheads, sir, and an open door that they were trying to force.”

  Susan said to Cavanaugh, “Tell him that there may be survivors holed up inside. Perhaps they opened the door when they didn’t hear any more noise from the infected.”

  “I’ll let you tell him yourself.” He nodded over her shoulder and they all watched O’Shea and Specialist Melman jog over to their position.

  Susan walked quickly toward the officer. Her voice sounded hollow through the Tychem suit. “Captain O’Shea, there could be survivors here.”

  O’Shea pointed out cameras at the entrance and a periscope sticking out of the top of each mound, “Each of these shelters
is equipped with multiple ways to observe the outside, including air quality sensors. If they opened the door, they didn’t know how to use these things.” He stopped next to Cavanaugh, “You try the door yet?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  O’Shea turned to the scientists, “CDC stays back one hundred feet. Specialist, standby with them.”

  The scientists moved back with Melman as Cavanaugh directed private Deeter to gently push the door open. Deeter got it to move about six inches before meeting an obstruction. “Sir, we have at least one body up against the door.”

  With some effort, two other squad members put their shoulders into it and got the door to open wider.

  Private Peabody turned with a crack in his voice, “I count three. One appears to be bitten on the face, sir. All male, all appear to have died by Novichok contact. And, sir… they don’t have any clothes on.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The dead people on the other side of the door are naked.”

  O’Shea observed that the intercom had been pried out of the wall. Bloody fingerprints told the tale of a frustrated Fiend who must have heard a voice and wanted to get to its owner on the other side of the box. He poked his head inside. The lights were on. A staircase led down deep into the ground. The victims at the top of the stairs were indeed without clothes. They appeared malnourished with markings on their wrists as though they had been manacled.