by SD Tanner
Logan appeared at his side. “You don’t have to do it this way. I can kill them by touching them.”
“No, Logan, we need to move faster. They’re so tightly packed on the dock, there’s a risk the hunters can still infect people.”
There were a thousand hunters and living spread across the dock and some were still able to move. The chance of a hunter getting close enough to attack a vulnerable person was too great, and they needed to secure the area faster than Logan could kill them.
“Alright, I take your point. I’ll start killing them while your teams disable them.” Looking across the dock, he added, “I’ll start with the most congested areas, then I’ll kill the ones you disable.”
He nodded back at Logan and turned to his combat team. “Let’s go people! Four shooters per kill and watch your buddies.”
As his team walked onto the dock, another four combat shooters walked past them carrying a woman on a makeshift stretcher. With so many down, but still moving hunters on the docks, they weren’t providing any medical assistance to the people lying wounded. Clearly still in pain, the woman on the stretcher was screaming with every step they took. Over the noise of the howling woman, he heard the combat shooters instructing the living to remain where they were until they got to them. Setting his face into an expression of steady calm, he waved his combat team to follow him.
“Let’s keep this tight, people. Three shooters to hold the hunter, and the other can take the shot, but shoot close, we can’t afford any wild shots.”
Normally he preferred to cut the back of the neck to down a hunter, but he didn’t want the shooters in such close contact. Equally the shooters needed to take a clean shot, otherwise they might accidentally hit a nearby survivor.
“Take it slow and steady, folks. We don’t need any more trouble.”
In teams of four, the combat shooters began to move through the crowded dock, and he heard the sound of single shots being fired from their handguns. He deliberately picked a teenage girl who was lying on her back with her arms and legs still moving. Her entire midsection was missing, and being newly turned, her organs hadn’t disintegrated into black goo. He could see her intestines were still loosely attached to her torso. She was dead, and her bright red blood didn’t flow, but it was pooling beneath her. Hunkering down next to her head, she looked up at him and whimpered pitifully. If he hadn’t know better, he would have thought she was still the person she was born to be, and not a newly born hunter.
Sighing deeply, a sadness swept through him. “I’m sorry, honey, but this is the end of the road.”.
Her eyes were already a bright blue, and although they were unfocussed when he walked over to her, she looked him in the eye and moaned. She’s a hunter, he grimly reminded himself, and her brain is dead.
He waved over his shooters. “Help me flip her over.”
They put their hands under her shoulders, torso, back and legs to turn her over onto what was left of her stomach, and his combat gloves became drenched in the young girl’s blood. Once she was lying flat on her stomach, he pulled out his Beretta M9 and flicked the safety off. Holding the gun just an inch from her neck, he said, “God speed,” and he fired the bullet directly into her brain stem. Her body immediately lost any controlled movement, and although she could still move her limbs, she was no longer able to control what they did.
Sighing, he thought, one down and hundreds to go. By the end of this day he didn’t think any of them would ever be quite the same people again. After he and his team disabled over thirty hunters, he saw Kat gingerly making her way toward him. She’d had flown to the island to handle the logistics of registering and assigning the survivors to houses and work. He didn’t want her exposed to the dangers on the dock, and he walked over to meet her without realizing he had blood all over his hands and clothing.
“Oh my God, Ted!”
Looking down at himself, he saw what she must be seeing and waving her off the dock with his bloodied gloved hand. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”
“I’m not feeble. I understand what’s going on here, but the people are upset and you need to talk to them.”
They cautiously made their way off the dock, stepping around corpses and downed hunters. Once they reached the end of the dock, he turned and looked at the scene in front of him. Dozens of combat shooters were still working in teams of four, and Logan was patiently killing hunters by touching them. Most of the severely injured had been taken from the dock and only a few remained, but they were now being treated while they waited to be moved. The sinking transport ship was still slowing descending into the water, and over the sound of the gunshots, he could hear it groaning. Several lifeboats were bobbing gently in the water, a safe distance from the sinking transport ship. He guessed they were waiting nearby, just in case any more survivors were still alive, and managed to jump overboard before the ship completely sank. It was very unlikely anyone was left alive, but he supposed people were doing anything to make themselves feel better about having bombed their own. The day had turned out to be the worst he’d ever witnessed, and he once again set aside his feelings.
“What do you need, Kat?”
“Well, I need you to not be so blank for one thing.”
“What do you mean?”
Kat gave him a compassionate look. “People need you to be a leader right now.” She put her hand on his arm, avoiding contact with the blood on his sleeve. “This has been a terrible day, Ted, and you’ve had to make hard decisions, but what you did means the vast majority of people on this island will live. They understand these are bad times, and they won’t blame you, but they do need you to tell them how to move forward. They need to know what you need them to do now.”
For the first time he understood how Gears must feel. True leadership was less about being in charge, and more about the heavy responsibility of balancing the needs of the many. There was no space left to deal with your own needs. It made him wondered how Gears coped, and he had to admit, he was learning a new respect for the man.
“Tell me what you need to me to do, Kat, and I’ll get it done.
“Go and talk to the medical teams and let them know you’re listening to their problems. I’m getting the survivors to move to the houses, and you should come with me and walk the area so they know you’re around. This is less about what you do and more about letting them know you’re on top of the issues. Over the past year, I’ve learned survival is more about confidence than reality. People are driven by what they believe and less by what’s in front of them. If our survivors feel they can deal with the problems, and they believe there’s a future worth having, then they’ll do everything they need to do to make that future happen. It’s in the mind first, Ted, and then success follows it.”
All his life he’d believed in action first, but he supposed Kat was right. Given the state of the world, they’d only survived this long because they believed it was doable, despite all the obvious signs that it wasn’t. He’d never really thought about it that way.
“You’re more than just an administrator, aren’t you?”
Smiling and nodding, Kat replied, “Actually I was a soccer Mom, but deal with the PTA long enough and you learn a lot about what really makes people tick.”
Following Kat’s advice, he went to talk to the medical teams treating the less seriously injured survivors in the parking lot across the road from the docks. They were surprisingly well stocked with medical supplies, and he mentally thanked Gears and Pax for their advice about how he should manage the move to the island. While he watched them working on a variety of small injuries, he could still hear the sound of shots being fired on the dock. Looking around at the injured survivors, he saw a face he recognized. It was Gray. After Pax interrogated him, Nelson had met with him and said he’d asked to be sent to the island. Apparently Gray had an epiphany and he wanted redemption.
He walked over to where Gray was sitting, hunched and bedraggled-looking. “So, what happened
on the ship?”
“You were infiltrated.”
“How?”
“Ruler must have sent his demons.”
“How would we all miss seeing demon super hunters? They have blue on blue eyes.”
“Well, for one thing, your security is lax, and for another, demons look like you and I do. They’re not hunters. The only obvious physical difference between them and us is their eyes and it’s easily hidden. You’re too trusting. You’re surrounded by enemies, but you’ll take anyone into your bases.” With a definitive shake of his head, he added, “You people are crazy.”
“No, we’re not. We’ll keep taking people in because that’s what we’re here for. To provide a safe haven and build an army to take back our land.”
“I get that. It’s admirable, and I wish I’d understood all this earlier, but you can’t be so trusting. You live in enemy territory and you act as if you’re still in control. It has to stop. You’re going to lose everything.”
He shook his head. “Do you have a better plan?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve made bad choices, and I’m going to pay for my crimes against man for the rest of eternity.” He sighed and continued. “I’ve been a selfish, sneaky, cowardly asshole and for that I’m deeply sorry. I might not have been able to stop Ruler, but I should never have helped him. There’s a lot of blood on my hands and I need to do something right before I die.”
He didn’t know where Gray was going with this, and saying nothing, he nodded in agreement. He thought Gray had far too much innocent blood on his hands to wash them clean in a single lifetime.
“Your enemy has no rules, no limits, and there’s nothing he won’t do to take what he believes is his. You need more information and I can get it for you.”
Now suspicious, he asked, “How?”
“Ruler infiltrated you, and I can infiltrate Ruler for you.”
“Or you could go back to Ruler and feed him more intel about us.”
“Ruler doesn’t need intel about you.” Waving his arm widely at the docks, he added, “Look at what he made you do without any intel whatsoever.”
He couldn’t argue the point. Ruler made him kill thousands of his own people by infiltrating them with what was probably no more than a few demon super hunters.
Gray leaned forward again. “Ruler can read minds. If I go back to him, I can convince him that I’m playing both sides. I won’t be, but he won’t believe I’ve changed, and he’s used to my mind being drugged up anyway. Like I said, I’ve been a lying asshole most of my life. I’m good at it. I lie to myself first and then to everyone else.”
“So, you’re offering to be a spy for us?”
Looking around at the tired survivors in the parking lot, he said, “Look at these people.”
People were standing or sitting, and they were quietly talking and comforting one another. A woman was zipping up the parka of a young boy. Another was holding a tray of steaming cups, and the person next to them was handing them out to grateful survivors. Everyone was taking care of the people with them. It was what he expected to see after such a disaster.
“What about ‘em?”
To his surprise, Gray smiled warmly. “This is the best of humanity. People in a crisis coming together and helping one another.” He grabbed his forearm in a tight grip. “This is why we deserve to live. This is what makes us worth fighting for. We can’t lose to Ruler. He takes away everything that’s good about us.”
Studying Gray intently, he said, “I can’t make this decision. You need to talk to Gears. Once everything here is secured, I need to head back to the base and brief them on what’s happened. You should come with me and make your offer to Gears.” Leaning back, he added, “But you should realize if you go back to Ruler and act as a spy for us, you’ll probably die. I don’t see Gears mounting any sort of fuckin’ rescue mission for you.”
Gray nodded. “And nor should he. I don’t deserve it and I wouldn’t put anyone’s life at risk for me either.”
For the rest of the day, while he went from one location to the next, he did as Kat asked and talked to people. As she predicted, people seemed to draw confidence from his presence and visible command of the situation. Inside he didn’t feel confident at all, but he continued to tell himself now was not the time to deal with his emotions. He’d killed two thousand of their own people to save the rest. Men, women and children died at his orders and at his hand, and if he allowed himself to dwell on it, he thought he might go a little mad. He needed to talk to Pax and ask him how he was supposed to deal with the growing sense of guilt that was building inside of him.
He was walking through the streets of the housing estate near the docks when he heard a child’s voice behind him. “Hey! Marine! Wait up!”
Turning, he saw a young boy running down the road towards him. He vaguely recognized him, but couldn’t remember where he’d seen him before.
The boy stopped a few feet from him. “Remember me?” Answering his own question, he said, “I’m Luke. Me and Jon met you on the transport ship.”
Genuinely grinning for the first time that day, he asked, “Where’s Jon?”
Luke’s face fell. “He didn’t make it.” Then his face brightened and he held up his hand. “But he loaned me his grandfather’s lucky ring.”
He looked at the boys hand, and spinning loosely around his thick knuckled thumb, was a Marine Corps ring. Grinning even more broadly, he held up his own hand and showed Luke his identical ring. “Semper Fi.”
Luke grinned back at him. “Will you teach me to be a Marine now?”
“Yes, son, of course I will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Ships Ahoy (Farrington)
Babies, where the hell was he going to find babies he wondered? The pilot had dropped him at the Marine supply base and he’d been stuck there for two days now. In the absence of everyone else, Cutter, in command of the bases, but was nowhere to be found. He’d wasted almost two days wandering around trying to find out what was going on. Other than learning that over twenty thousand people left on transport ships headed for the UK, he was still none the wiser.
The rats in his head hadn’t returned and he was growing accustomed to the voice that spoke in his mind. Oddly, he enjoyed the company. The voice was always happy, energetic and shared his cynical view of man, and the deal he’d struck with the voice was working out well. His only concern was his craving for bloodied meat. He’d never had much interest in food, and viewed it and the associated bodily functions, as a necessary nuisance. Sitting at a picnic table next to the container that served as one of the kitchens, he studied his bowl of tinned soup with disinterest. What he really wanted was flesh, preferably still pulsing with blood.
As far as he could tell he was still himself. The demon, and he knew that’s what the voice really was, told him his designer virus killed the host the same way the hunter virus killed the human in the hunter. The news hadn’t surprised him that much, and he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t suspected it all along. He’d been so caught up with the analysis, he’d blindsided himself to the consequences, and he supposed maybe Gears and Lydia were right and he really was a bad guy.
I don’t want to eat this, he thought.
Then let’s go, the voice replied.
Go where.
The ship.
The ship was considered the safest place on earth, and it was logical to assume that maybe the baby was there. Nodding to himself, he thought, okay.
We can get something better to eat there, the voice said.
He was a known and important person on the bases, and he didn’t expect anyone would question his need to get to the ship. While people around him were going about their daily work, he left his bowl of soup on the table and strode toward the helipads in search of a pilot. In the distance, he heard the crack of weapons firing and knew they were training the combat shooters. Scavenger teams were arriving with truckloads of supplies, and others were unloading their hauls into the large wa
rehouses. Outside the rows of containers used as barracks, were makeshift clothing lines and rows of identical ACUs were drying in the cool wind. The base was a hub of activity and always had been since it was established, but he’d largely avoided the bases and preferred to stay at the CDC. This was a rare glimpse of the world that Gears and his brothers built, and he thought it looked horrible and smelt bad. He’d never understood Gears commitment to saving mankind, it all seemed a bit unnecessary to him. In his world, people were only slightly more important than lab rats, and that was only because human test subjects were harder to come by. He still preferred lab rats to humans, they kept their opinion to themselves.
He found a pilot cleaning one of the Black Hawks. “I need to get the ship urgently.”
The pilot him looked him up and down. “On whose orders?”
“My own.”
Before the he could ask any further questions, another pilot walked over. “It’s okay. This is Farrington. He took over from Lydia at the CDC.”
“Do you want me to take him to the ship?”
“No, I’ll take him.” Turning to him, the pilot stuck out his hand. “I’m Dale.”
Ignoring Dale’s proffered hand, he looked around at the Black Hawks. “So, which one do I get in?”