“It’s like we’re being bum rushed by a bunch of really stoned hobos who just robbed an army surplus store.” Drew said.
“Stop where you are, or we’ll fire!” Jeff had gotten out of the Humvee. He was yelling at the dozen slow moving people coming for them. The people kept right on coming towards them. Jeff fired a few shots over their heads. That also didn’t have any effect on the group shuffling towards them.
“Sir?” Scott asked loudly from the turret. Drew had his window rolled down with the barrel of his M-16 shoved through it. The safety was off. His finger was already squeezing the trigger when the first of the approaching creepers broke into a limping sprint for Jeff.
That did it for the rest of the team. They weren’t going to sit there and watch Jeff get taken down by one of these things. Not only did the first one who’d threatened Jeff get mowed down they went ahead and blasted away at anyone still standing for good measure. In a few seconds the parade ground was covered once more with the dead. None of them would be getting back up again any time soon.
The sound of that gunfire had awakened the sleeping base. More of the slowly shuffling monsters came out from the alleyways between the buildings. There were a few who were moving with the agility and speed they were more used to seeing at night when the crawlerz came. The next few minutes were a riot of gunfire and blood. Jeff ducked back in the Humvee to shoot out of his open window like Drew was doing. In the turret the sound of the machine gun being fired suddenly stopped.
Scott’s screams replaced it as the infected who’d jumped on top of the Humvee dug it’s teeth into Scott’s face. Drew jumped out his door to see if he could help. Seeing it was too late he put some rounds into both the infected and the man he’d been responsible for. Even before he pulled the trigger, he was getting blasted by the psychic euphoria the infected was radiating. The taste of Scott’s uninfected flesh sent it into a crazy kind of bliss. Instead of the normal images though these were watered down sunbursts of color mixed with hypnotic surges of music. The kind of music you could reach out and touch.
Jeff had to pull a dazed Drew back into the driver’s seat.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jeff yelled. “Shut your door!”
“You didn’t feel that?” Drew asked.
“Feel what?” Jeff asked. He was looking around the courtyard turned above ground graveyard. With the large caliber weapons on the roofs of the Humvees they’d made pretty short work of the slow moving infected attacking them. Only the one fast one had gotten through and killed anyone. The only casualty so far was Scott. Not wanting to leave the turret unmanned Jeff ordered Billy to come back and take the turret in their Humvee.
“The weird mind thing the infected set off. I don’t know it was more like a trippy dream than the normal blood lust stuff. Like a hippy mass murderer tripping balls.” Drew answered. He was helping Billy pull Scott out of the turret. They’d already pulled the infected out and thrown it to the ground.
“When Harley asks if you want a vitamin just say no next time.” Billy joked looking at Drew with concern. He’d actually felt something super similar during the brief battle. Not that it’d really been a battle. More like a shooting gallery. It’d been Scott’s first and last confrontation though. Poor guy had sat on a nice safe boat since this all started only to die the first time that he mixed it up with the infected. They’d give him a warriors send off when they got down the mountain. A few words, a match and a lot of gas.
They needed to understand better what had happened here. On the surface it seemed like just another base that’d gotten overwhelmed by the infected. The large number of infected stumbling around in broad daylight coupled with the weirdness Drew had experienced had Jeff’s curiosity aroused though. He really couldn’t see reporting this incident and ending it by saying they’d turned around and driven back off the mountain.
With that in mind he ordered the team to stand by to clear the buildings. He was torn between his curiosity and the fact that he might be risking his men’s lives for nothing. To help clear his conscience he took the first team in himself. Kicking in the door after blasting the lock with a breaching shotgun the team went in. They turned around and went back out three times faster than they’d gone in.
It was a charnel house inside. Dead bodies and rats and bugs everywhere. The smell had been unreal. Despite everything these men had seen out in the field this still made several of them puke. A couple of the new guys were running in circles cussing when they weren’t puking. Taking a couple of deep breaths of the fresh mountain air far from the makeshift mortuary Jeff waved his finger in the air and the team stacked up on him for a second run.
The next few buildings were clear of any obstacles. They were stacked to the rafters with supplies though. Jeff was wishing they’d made the trucks come up after all. He had the men quickly load up on critical supplies before they moved on to the last building. He knew it’d be harder to breach since it was the main administrative building. This one had a couple of sublevels that’d been blasted in the mountain rock.
It turned out to be easier to get in than expected. The front door was unlocked. There were bodies on the porch and in the lobby of the big building. Most of them were wearing the standard issue uniforms of the army. Not a lot of civilians had been sent to this base. The bulk of the assigned personnel had been chosen specifically because they were unmarried with no children. The senior officers and some of the older enlisted men had been authorized to have their immediate families brought to the base. That explained the handful of pathetically small bodies lying in the dirt.
In a hallway off of the lobby they rifled through some of the administrative offices. A few more of the slow shuffling infected had to be put down as well. Compared to the lightning fast way the infected typically attacked them the slow movements of these creeping shufflers was a walk in the park. At least it was until another one of the new guys thought a room was clear before it really was. He was bitten in the back of the neck by a shuffler who’d been squatting in a corner the man had forgotten to check.
Scared of being put down the new guy ran though the building shooting at anyone who tried to get him to stop. He was cut down by machine gun fire from a Humvee when he finally made it outside. Jeff waited for confirmation that the man was dead before continuing the clearing of the building.
They ran into a few offices with CIA emblems on the nameplates on the desks. That was triggering some vague memory of Jeff’s about who all had been stationed here. More like some vague memory of not being told everything the base was going to be used for but asked to make sure it had some unusual items shipped to it. There’d been so much of that sort of thing at the end that he’d gotten used to rubber stamping the requests when they came across his desk. He’d been the man when it came to getting stuff shipped to the different depots, ships, bases and islands. That had made him privy to a lot of information that otherwise would never have been shared with him.
There was a locked steel door at the end of one of the corridors. Jeff assumed this was the door that would open up to the elevator that’d take them down to the sublevels. Whatever weirdness had been going on here had probably originated down on those levels. The lights in the building were still working so there was a good chance the elevator was as well. Jeff and Billy were poking at the number pad trying to figure out how they were going to open the door when it suddenly slid open by itself. Looking up they found themselves staring down the barrels of a couple of handguns.
Unfortunately for the two men holding those handguns they’d brought pistols to a machine gun fight. Jeff very politely asked them to lower their weapons. Looking at Jeff like he was crazy Billy whipped his rifle into play and used words and a tone of voice that made a lot more sense to him. It was a tossup whether Jeff’s out of place politeness or Billy’s more aggressive approach got the men to lower their weapons. It may have also had something to do with the way the hallway behind Jeff and Billy was filled with hard looking men holding lar
ge caliber weapons as well.
The two men who’d opened the door were dressed in a manner which screamed ‘CIA’. They moved like they had military experience. They didn’t seem to be phased by having the tables turned on them immediately after opening the door. They kept their weapons lowered but refused to drop them. They actually had the nerve to try ordering Jeff to have his men stand down.
“Screw you man!” Billy said aggressively stepping towards the man who was shooting a disdainful look at Billy’s tattooed face.
“Call off these side show freaks and identify yourself. Otherwise you’re never getting down that elevator.” The older of the pair said. He was doing his best to ignore the skull faced guy aiming a weapon at the side of his head. On the CCTV system they’d seen the Humvees roll up and take out all the infected on the top level. They hadn’t really noticed all the tattoos and Harley Quinn patches until they’d opened the elevator door. Now they were a little unsure exactly what they’d walked into. Jeff hesitated for a second. He was trying to remember what his official title was now.
“I’m a cabinet member of President Thompson’s charged with coordinating the reunification of the United States. We were given several locations to physically visit. Our goal is to verify if they’re still in operation or not. This is one of them.” Jeff answered. It was a fair summary.
“You seem pretty hands on for someone responsible for coordinating such a large project.” The agent answered. There was obviously a lot more to Jeff’s story but what he’d just said rang true. The agent was a pretty solid judge of character. You kind of had to be to survive for very long in his line of work.
“You guys talk a lot of smack for being stuck in a hole in the ground surrounded by the infected.” Billy said. He was still pretty worked up.
“Oh. The ones topside are just for camouflage. We figured having some of the specimens wandering around would keep random people from trying to loot the place. We could’ve taken them out pretty much anytime.” The agent answered off hand. Seeming to have made up his mind he turned around and went to the large elevator. It had to be big enough to accommodate bringing supplies and machinery down to the sub levels. It was a tight fit but Jeff and everyone in the clearing crew were able to squeeze in with the two agents for the ride down. Jeff gave the men standing by outside a quick sitrep before they descended where the radios might not work anymore.
“I especially enjoyed the part about blowing up the base if you guys didn’t come back out in a few hours.” The older agent said with a grin. Now that no one was pointing guns at him he was in a much better mood. This base had been designed to shrug off missile strikes. Grenades shot from the back of a Humvee weren’t even going to get noticed. When the elevator stopped the slightly junior agent keyed in the pin number to open the doors.
One side of the large warehouse space was lined with crates and boxes. The shelves went up a good twenty feet in the air on that side. The other side had been cleaned out to make room for a long line of cages. Each cage held a single crawler. Weapons were immediately tucked back into shoulder blades as Jeff and crew went on full alert. The agent made an effort to keep the condescension out of his voice when he saw how they reacted.
“Notice anything different about these guys?” Agent Smelski asked. He was the older of the two agents. He’d introduced himself on the short elevator ride down.
“I haven’t killed them yet.” Drew said.
“Why are some of them wearing clothes? The ones outside were wearing clothes too. We normally only see the surgers and the fresher crawlerz still wearing clothes.” Jeff said carefully studying the caged monsters. He needed to find whoever was in charge and let them know that this idea never ended well. Didn’t these people ever watch any zombie movies growing up?
“Why aren’t they trying to eat us?” Billy asked.
“Bingo!” Smelski said pointing a finger at Billy. “Two points to the guy who better hope he never has to go on a job interview.”
“I’m sorry. I meant to ask why they aren’t trying to eat us, asshole?” Billy said staring straight back at the agent. Smelski had the good grace to smile at the joke at least. Although it was debatable if Billy had meant it as a joke or not.
“We’ve been shooting them up with massive doses of psychedelics. We figured since the root cause of the infection seems to be some sort of psychotropic reaction why not fight fire with fire. I happen to work for an organization with a lot of experience in mass hallucinations. We have literally hundreds of gallons of LSD that blows away anything that you’d find in a Grateful Dead concert parking lot.” The agent explained excitedly.
“You’re giving acid to zombies and expect everything to work out well?” Drew asked with a wide-eyed expression of disbelief. There must be something he was missing here. At least it explained the trippy vision he’d had out in the parking lot.
“It seems to be working ok based on the results we’re seeing so far. They’ve become much more docile. They lose their fear of the sun. We’ve seen flashes of humanity in their eyes. They lose that fierce desire to eat us.” Smelski explained.
“One of them took a bite out of my gunner topside.” Jeff said.
“Yeah, we’ve been experimenting with how long it lasts. We’ve been trying to get the dose right and see which effects wear off first. If they bite someone then that overrides pretty much everything.” Smelski was backpedaling a little bit now from his earlier version of LSD as a wonder drug. Jeff stared at Smelski for a minute before asking the random question that’d percolated to the top of his thoughts.
“Is it your kid or your wife or somebody else you’re trying to bring back?” Jeff asked. Smelski answered without even thinking about it. The trained CIA agent must be sampling some of his own wonder drug.
“My daughter. My wife was gone by the time I made it home. I was too late to save them. I was able to secure my little girl and get her up here in time though.” A little bit of the crazy was starting to shine through. In a wheedling tone of voice Smelski kept talking as he produced a grenade out of his pocket. “We just need a few more volunteers to test out the cure. We’ll infect you after we get your medical history. You’ll be back to yourselves in no time. We really are close to a cure.”
The infected who were still dressed suddenly made a lot more sense to everyone. They were still dressed because they’d been recently turned. Turned and dosed up with large amounts of LSD. Smelski held up the grenade to pull the pin out. Once he had that live explosive in their faces, he’d force them to leave half their crew in the warehouse while the other half went back up the elevator. Before the grief crazed father could pull the pin out Billy shot him in the face.
The other agent immediately put his hands in the air and started swearing he’d had nothing to do with any of it. Billy shot him too. They spent the next few minutes walking around the warehouse putting the caged up infected out of their misery. One of the cages had been painted pink. A little girl was sitting inside. Her pupils were dilated so much you could barely see any white in her eyes. She was surrounded by badly soiled dolls and teddy bears. With a heavy heart Jeff shot the little girl so no one else would have to do it.
Chapter 35: Rested and Ready
Having the President swing by to visit throughout the day ensured they got decent treatment at least. LeBron, Yue and Lisa had been given a single large suite in the infirmary to share. It wasn’t like they had a lot of privacy concerns after living on the road with one another for so long. Especially in a world were venturing outside to take a leak could lead to getting your face ripped off.
The visits weren’t purely social calls. They turned into planning sessions minutes into the first visit. With Jeff out on a road trip with all his tattooed buddies and SECDEF dead thanks to a justified shot by Yue Shaun needed people he could trust to talk to. It helped that everyone now recognized Yue’s innate ability to manipulate people. That was a skill Shaun was especially eager to tap.
As far as logistics
and strategy went LeBron was Jeff’s key source for all that. Jeff himself would be the first to admit that his much younger protégé was easily his equal when it came to mapping out those kinds of processes. What neither LeBron nor Shaun had was the catalogue of people, places and things that Jeff had stored in his memory banks. Shaun had questioned his own motivation for putting Jeff on the slow train to Cheyenne instead of having him flown there. There was a part of him that was still upset with the role Jeff had played in bringing down the deadly attack on Weathertop.
Cheyenne itself wasn’t a welcoming place to the new President. The Space Force general who ran the base wasn’t completely convinced Shaun was the constitutionally legal President. There was a senator and a couple of representatives camped out inside the monstrous mountain facility who were also hesitant to accept his leadership. Lisa had piped up to say that the Space Force was pretty much a fake military unit and who really cared what some career politicians hiding out in bunkers thought? Which was why the President wisely was eliciting most of his advice from LeBron and Yue although he agreed completely with every word Lisa had said.
Crawlerz: Book 5: Off the Rails Page 30