After a few years of doing the typical drudge grunt work, he decided that he wasn’t doing enough and opted to join the Spec Ops. The extra pay didn’t hurt either. Most of his money went back home, half to a savings account he had set up before he left. The other half went to his parents, who needed it to keep the debt collectors from seizing the family farm.
Smith tucked the brochure into the front pocket of his vest, patting it to make sure it was secure. He would make sure he got back home, show his family the token he had from the mission. He had quite the collection to show them; it was something he had started a while ago. Every mission he grabbed something he felt that held the essence of the mission he was on. A talisman to keep him focused on the true mission.
✽ ✽ ✽
Carter sat in the doorway, his eyes constantly scanning the street outside. The storm still raged on and was almost magnificent to see. The flashes lightning created a quick moment where the entire street, and even perhaps the city, was lit up. The rain came in torrents, and even flooding the street a little. The drainage into the sewers couldn’t keep up with the amount of water flowing through it.
Carter was slightly tense from the storm, he never really did like storms all that much. They seemed so much bigger than him, or anyone for that matter. Storms were something unconquerable, only managed. It was one of the few things that humans couldn’t subjugate.
He was happy that he was safe inside and, more importantly, dry. He counted his blessings among what little blessings there were. He inched closer to the front door and leaned to see better into the street. A flash of lightning was enough to jar him and send him reeling back. He decided to be ready for the next one and moved back to the door.
Carter scanned the street, taking in every detail making sure nothing major had changed. A flash again lit up the night sky and the tall buildings in the background. His mind quickly jumped to the forward operating base. He got up and knocked twice on the wall to get the attention of Knight.
A silhouette appeared shortly after in the doorway leading to the office. Carter signaled it was all clear and the silhouette materialized into Knight.
“What’s going on?”, Asked Knight.
Carter whispered, “Sir, we I just thought about the storm, and what about the forward operating base? We never established comms with them, and to see how they were doing in the storm.” He paused and pointed outside. “If it is this bad here on the ground I don’t want to begin to think what it is like at the top of that building.”
Knight mulled it over and quickly walked back into the other room. “Smith, did you bring one of those radios with you?”
Smith dug into his pack and pulled out a radio handset, handing it over to Knight. The others perked up at the commotion, while Knight turned on the radio. He turned it to the channel and called on it.
“Langston or anyone else copy?”
He waited a few moments, not wanting to cut them off on the other end. He was about to call again when a garbled response met him.
“Langston here... Copy... Storm…. Lost a... base still…”
Knight let a breath out, the base was still there at least.
“Bad copy, repeat transmission. The storm is interfering.”
The Static was overwhelming most of the transmission, even though they had only made it about eight of the fourteen blocks down the street. They weren’t too far from the base or the crash.
“Repeat, the base is secure, taking quite a beating, but secure.”
Knight felt the pent-up worry leave his body, “Good copy, notify if anything changes. Let’s check back at O’six-hundred.”
“Ten-four, O’six-hundred.”
Knight handed the radio back to Smith. Smith packed it back up and sat back down.
Knight entered the office room again, feeling a little more reassured now that he knew the base was doing fine. Now once the storm was over, he could turn his full focus to finding the pilots and bring them back safely. However, for now, he was stuck sitting in some office building hoping for the storm to end. He decided to talk to Smith, to at least keep himself occupied.
"Find anything interesting in that brochure?" He asked.
Smith looked up from where he was sitting, eating a candy bar, "Nah, nothing I didn't already know."
"Well you know when we get back, you still owe me twenty bucks right?"
"For what? That last game we watched?" Smith asked.
Knight chuckled, "Yeah. You said that if my team won, you would give me twenty dollars. Guess what. My team won."
Smith replied with a smirk, "Yeah, but you never paid me for the game before that. Remember, my team won. So technically it cancels each other’s debt out."
Knight put on an even bigger smirk, "As your commanding officer I order you to pay up your debt."
"Oh, I see...it's going to be like that. How about this, I bring the beer, and you bring the food next time?" Smith asked with a grin.
Knight pretended to think it over, "Hmm, I guess that works. But don't get any of that cheap ass beer."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Smith waved him off.
Knight walked over to the corner of the room. It was one of the only things he had to look forward to; him and Smith every time they were back at their base they would go to each other’s houses and watch what game was on. It didn't matter what sport or what teams were playing. They both just watched the game, deciding previously who they were going to cheer for. It was their ritual, they brought beer and normally pizza.
They would spend the next few hours talking about how bad the other person's team was, and it normally ended up with them betting who would win. They had never actually paid each other what they betted, and that was part of their inside joke. Sometimes if the game they were watching were too boring, they would play video games, normally only games they could play co-op. Even then they would sometimes rent or go to the movies to watch the newest action movie, always laughing at how ridiculous the scenes with explosions and gunfire was unrealistic.
They were each other’s best friend. The only other person they trusted. It wasn't easy to make friends in their line of work, and even so, you couldn't tell others about what you did. It was all classified, but they could talk about it to each other because they had both worked the op.
Knight daydreamt about being back in his own home, in his nice comfortable recliner, sipping an ice-cold beer, watching a game. It sounded better than heaven compared to what they were dealing with presently. A loud booming thunder shook the building they were in and snapped Knight out of his heavenly daydream. He was still in a travel agency, hidden away in the offices.
It was going to be a long night, and that was an understatement. He took a long, deep sigh, knowing he was too awake even to attempt to take a nap. He decided to follow everyone else and dug out an MRE. He was ready for the long haul of the night.
✽ ✽ ✽
Ramirez took the second shift of watch, he tapped Carter on the shoulder and whispered that it was time to switch. The storm was still going strong but had lessened a bit. He settled down near the door and rested against his pack. Checking the outside again, he mentally marked where everything that he could see was still in the same place.
He returned to his private thoughts. He had kept things to himself, still trying to work them out in his head before he opened up to the squad. When they found the dead bodies on top of the roof, there was something very different and wrong about them. Ramirez moved the bodies that were left on the rooftop and piled them near the edge away from the base.
After examining a few, he quickly was perplexed by what he was seeing. From a medical standpoint, it was easy to see an infection was rampant. Even without his medical training, he could tell that these people weren’t normal anymore. He was about to call the others when he noticed the differences, but quickly changed his mind; he wanted to be sure before he brought anything up.
So much had already happened, and he didn’t want to u
nload more on the rest of them. It was times like this that part of him missed the old days when he was just a normal doctor. Well not a normal doctor, a surgeon. He missed being able to save people’s lives and then seeing the families of the people he had saved happy. It was different in the military, you saved someone’s life on the battlefield and then they were medevac’d back to some triage hospital. You never knew if they were going to make it or not, and you never saw that person again normally.
But it was here and now, and he had no choice but to face the problem head-on. The bodies of the civilians had several things that stuck out as wrong. The first and major one was that their veins were bulging against their skin, blackened with hardened blood. The second was their eyes, filled with blood to the point that their eyes were black as well. The last thing he noticed, a major difference was that they all had some wound that was exposed. Some had a tear in their muscles in their arms, others their legs.
It was safe to say that whatever was causing people to go insane was contagious, but mainly from one infected person to a non-infected person. Oddly enough it would seem that these people had died from their wounds and, yet they were still moving. Maybe it was a virus that traveled through the bloodstream until it reached the brain, shutting down major organs slowly over time. It wasn’t airborne, and that alone eased his mind a bit. Ramirez hoped that he didn’t run into any infected, but knew the likelihood was great. This infection had claimed an entire country, and they were stuck right in the middle of it.
It was by some miracle that they had yet to find one of these infected people. A city the size of Tokyo had an enormous population. He prayed that their luck wouldn’t run out anytime soon. They had no way of dealing with the infection, and more specifically no gear to help prevent it. They had come in blind and would have to pay the price eventually.
Ramirez wondered if the government officials that had decided to send them in even knew that there was an infection of this magnitude. They must have had some intel on what was going on. Hell, the US military still had several bases located in Japan, left over from the second World War. Surely, they would have been able to notify someone back home. He then realized that they hadn’t been sent into recon as originally told, they were here to confirm whether an infection had crippled an entire country.
Maybe that’s what the other squad was doing at the hospital. They were the ones being sent in to collect the objective, either a sample or a cure. Ramirez bet was a cure; it was the only way anyone would risk sending men into the country. Things were starting to look clear to Ramirez; he needed to speak to Knight. He got up and knocked on the wall twice, alerting Knight as Carter had.
A silhouette appeared again in the doorway; Knight again walked towards the front door to have a private conversation.
Chapter 18
Remembering the Sins
Langston watched over the man that lay on a cot in front of him. The man tossed and turned, his body starting to regain some mobility from the sedative. Langston didn’t know what to say to the man once he did wake up. He wasn’t a doctor or a psychiatrist. He didn’t have any training to deal with this situation; the only way he could make this man feel more comfortable was to tell him the truth.
Was there an uncomplicated way to tell someone that they were the only survivor of his squad? That, he was alive when everyone else was dead, because if they were alive surely, they would be here. Langston didn’t even know if the man would have regained his sensibility after waking up or if he would still be in shock. He didn’t know what would happen and that worried him a bit. He looked down at the needle Ramirez had given to him before he left. How many times had he pondered if he would have to use it or not?
The needle contained the same sedative that had been used on the man before to subdue him from doing anything crazy. Langston hoped that the man would wake up and be perfectly normal, but still held the needle ready if he wasn’t. The storm outside raged on; he wondered if the other two would hear him if he called for help. He could barely hear himself think over the noise.
A loud crash of thunder reverberated throughout the city, the sound waves shaking the building. Langston closed his eyes during this and made himself think of somewhere else. When he could hear no more thunder, he opened his eyes again, still in a tent with a man on a cot. Wait. The man on the cot was moving.
✽ ✽ ✽
The man’s eyes opened and saw the world. It was a blurry mess, colors melded together. He tried to tell his body to move but it wouldn’t respond properly, sluggish and unwilling. He had the feeling that his body was waking up from a coma of sorts. He looked around the room.
The colors started to separate, giving away to more definitive shapes. It wasn’t in a room, but a tent with several boxes in the corner. How had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered was walking out the back of the helicopter, pushing the storage crate. Finally regaining the use of his limbs, he pushed himself up out of the cot.
He rubbed his eyes and shook his head a little, trying to shake the mental cobwebs away. A voice spoke out to him, “Hello, how are you feeling?”
He jumped, surprised that there was another person in the tent with him. He looked over to the corner from which the voice came. It was a man he didn’t recognize, but he wore military garb.
He spoke to the man, wanting answers. “Where am I? What happened?”
The man stepped forward putting himself in a stance of attack, and asked, “What do you remember?”
He tried to jog his memory of what happened but again fell short. His mind seemed to stop after pushing the crate out of the helicopter.
He groggily whispered, “I don’t know, I remember going on a mission. Arriving at the LZ and then unloading the crate. After that, I don’t remember anything. Was I in an accident?”
The man eased a bit, “In a way yes, you were. There are some things you need to know first.”
Langston took a deep breath and exhaled.
“I am the pilot of one of the helicopters assigned to your mission. I was forced to return here to the forward operating base after we lost the command ship. We are effectively on our own here, the only people we have is me, two surviving sailors from the command ship, and a Fire team. The mission isn’t going so well.”
“What happened to everyone else? There should be at least three times that many people.”
“I know this will be a lot to take in, but, well… everyone in your squad is dead. Everyone else but the one Fire team is dead or unaccounted for. The command ship is gone, and we are stuck here in this city. There are only nine of us left.”
“Where is my team? I want to speak to them.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea right now. You still are under the sedatives. Maybe you should just lay back down for a bit.”
Langston could see that he was visibly agitated and becoming more conscious of the situation. He readied the syringe, still hiding it behind his back, not trusting the man before him. He began to step forward towards the man. He quickly changed the subject to calm the man but knew he was going to have to inject him.
“What is your name, huh?”
The man searched his mind, quickly pulling out his name. “My name is Parker. I am an engineer.”
“Well Parker, my name is Langston. I am a pilot; I am here to help you, OK? I just want to help you.”
Parker let out a deep breath and looked at Langston. He smiled slightly and nodded. Langston was getting closer now, which Parker thought was weird, but didn’t try to stop him. As Langston got closer, he lunged forward, bringing his hand that was previously hidden from behind his back and aiming for Parker’s neck.
Parker instinctively tried to duck but was too slow. The needle pierced his skin, and he felt the warmth of something injected into his bloodstream. He wasn’t out of the fight yet, though, and jabbed Langston in the throat, causing him to fall back. Parker yanked out the needle and got up sprinting for the flap of the tent.
He ran
out pausing for a moment to get his bearings. The area seemed familiar, yet very different. He ran towards the side of the roof that was near the exit door. A flash of a memory burned in his mind. That very same door opening, something behind that door caused Parker to feel dread like he never had before.
Snapping back to reality he jogged over to the helicopter he saw nearby. He had no idea where he was going really; he just wanted to leave, to get far away from this place. Approaching the helicopter, he came upon the small covered area where Ramirez had put the bodies earlier. Parker stopped at the tent looking at the bodies.
The faces were what had caused him to stop. He knew the faces of the men that layout on the tarp. They were his friends and fellow soldiers. His stomach tightened up, the pain of seeing them dead became a reality and knocked the air out of his lungs. He dropped down to his knees next to a body. It was his best friend, Matt.
The memories flashed back into his mind so brightly that he felt as though he was reliving them.
✽ ✽ ✽
They had quickly unloaded the storage container. The whipping air from the helicopter was making it hard to hear anything. Someone was already setting up the .50 caliber up, aimed at the door. Parker was the first to go into the container and start to rerun the checklist, making sure everything was still there. He grabbed a clipboard off the wall of the container and flipped through the pages.
He looked up from the clipboard after hearing the shouting. Parker walked closer to the door since he couldn’t hear what they were yelling. A gunshot rang out, over the noise of the helicopter, and shouting. Soon, several more shots rang out. Parker hesitated at the door, wondering if he should look out. He didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.
He decided that he should look out and peeked through the crack in the door. What he saw was the exit door to the roof open, with lots of civilians pouring onto the roof. Parker saw the flashes of the .50 caliber blasting away at the group. He raised his rifle sighting the closest civilian; it was on top of one of his squad mates tearing into the man’s flesh. Parker fired at the woman that was on him, putting three bullets into her midsection.
What Remains (Book 1): The Outbreak Page 9