Zombie Fallout 12

by Mark Tufo

  Randing had a crazed look in his eye; he was close to diving off the edge himself. There was something more here; yeah, I’d angered him, but if I had to take a guess or two, I’d say Randing had barely passed his last psych eval, or had entirely lied his way through it. He paused to look at me, to really look me in the eye, before his gaze swept across my people and how close to springing into action they were. He backed away, rational thought seemed to take hold.

  “This isn’t over.” He pointed a finger at me before heading back.

  I sat back down instead of flinging a retort. If I provoked him, and he did something stupid that got him injured or killed, that would be on me. The rest of the flight was unremarkable, which was just fine with me. I sat back with my eyes closed; I wanted to sleep. I couldn’t get the images of Halsey being ripped apart out of my mind. Not sure if sleep would have allowed me an escape or would have only furthered the trauma as I watched him killed a half dozen more times, each in a progressively worse manner. When we landed, there were twenty MPs waiting for me. I thought it was a bit of overkill.

  “What do you want us to do?” BT asked.

  “Get the squad home, get the puppies to Tracy; go say hi to my sister and have her make you a warm meal.”

  “Kiss my ass,” he responded to that last part. I smiled before I turned to the MP.

  “Lieutenant Talbot,” the Master Sergeant was holding a pair of handcuffs, “will these be necessary?”

  I handed my weapons to BT. “No,” I told him truthfully. Randing was off to the side, a look of smug satisfaction played along the lines of his face. We went one way, my squad another. Ended up in a cell at the MP barracks. They let me get showered and gave me new cammies, even got a hot meal before I settled down onto the real punishment: a cot. About as comfortable as a cement floor, and the added beauty is they always tend to be about a foot short, so even if you find a decent position on one, some part of your body is hanging off, and don’t even get me started on the blankets that are made from surplus coconut husks. When you’re done sleeping with them, they make for effective sandpaper. It was maybe an hour later when Tracy showed up.

  “Got your gift,” she said, referring to the dogs. “BT wasn’t sure which one was Holly and which one was Chloe.”

  “Chloe’s the all white one.”

  “I heard about Derrick; how are you doing?” She had grabbed the bars. I leaned my head up against the cold steel; she stroked my forehead.

  “Been better.” My eyes watered up.

  “What’s going to happen to you?”

  “If Randing has his way, he’ll string me up by my balls.”

  “That won't happen.”

  I tilted my head to the side, wondering what she knew that I didn’t.

  “Can’t string up what I have in my possession.”

  “That’s pretty funny.”

  “You’re not the only one.” She smiled, but it had a sad tinge to it. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “I won’t get shot for treason.”

  “Mike.”

  “Sorry. Worst…? They boot me out of the Corps and then I lose my value to being here.”

  “We’ll be on the road again.” She let her head rest against the bars this time.

  I was going to say she and the rest could stay, but that wasn’t going to happen. Where I went, so did the rest. “I’m sorry,” was all I managed to say.

  “We’ll figure it out. We always do.” We talked for a couple of hours, even managed a kiss or two through the bars. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Henry is going to want to see you.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I told her before I reluctantly let go of her hand. Dozed off for a few hours or more; the light of dawn was making its way toward me, but that wasn’t what woke me up. It was the smoke.

  “I thought you were going to give those up?” I asked, not even having to roll over to know who was there with me.

  “Just can’t help yourself, can you?” Her raspy voice slid like broken glass across concrete. “I don’t have the whole story just yet, but Randing not only wants you out of his Corps, he wants you off the base. Even talked about having you removed from the earth, if my informant can be trusted.”

  “Why are you here? I can’t imagine it’s to offer any help.”

  “Of course not. I’m looking forward to the time where I won’t have to look at you anymore.”

  Now I turned. “What have I ever done to you except call you out on your bullshit? Oh,” I said as the light of realization finally dawned on me. “That’s it. You don’t like being called out. You want to hide in the shadows, strike out when no one is looking before retreating back into the blackness of your soul.”

  “You’re one to talk of souls.”

  “Nice deflection. Speaking of…”

  “I’m not going to say anything, if that’s what you’re implying. If they tried to hurt you, you would feel the need to defend yourself, and there’s no telling what would happen. But if they kick you out? You would go meekly into the night, and I would be rid of you once and for all.”

  “I’d feel sorry for you, but you like it this way. Living alone, making sure you survive and thrive at all costs. Someday, Vivian, I am going to do a nice dance on your grave.”

  I sensed I’d somehow gotten under that extra-thick layer of skin she wore. She snuffed out her cigarette. “Good day, Michael.”

  “See you at the trial.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Had a steady stream of visitors the entire day; Henry and Tracy being the first of them. “Deneaux?” she asked, sweeping her hand past her face, attempting to wave the smoke away.

  “Came to gloat.”

  Henry’s stub of a tail was wagging as fast as I’d ever seen it. Though he was pissed that we had a barrier between us, if given the time, I think he would have broken through. Saw the kids, my squad came in, then finally BT and my sister, who was carrying a serving dish.

  “Made you something!” she said proudly. “Meat casserole!”

  It looked like a chunk of sandstone and smelled like fried rubber. “Thanks, but they won’t let me have outside food.”

  “No worries; the guard said it was fine.” BT was smiling.

  “Oh, fantastic.” I did my best to not have any sarcastic inflection in my words. She passed it through the food slot; I was surprised at the weight of it. Like she had somehow packed extra density into it. After a while, my sister excused herself and it was just BT and myself.

  “Hear anything?”

  “Been talk about reassigning the squad.”

  “What about you?”

  “Come on, man. Do you even need to ask?”

  “I think I do. My sister is pregnant; you’d be a lot smarter to stay here have as normal a life as possible.”

  “You better pull your head out of your ass, Talbot, and fight this. We’ve been on three missions since we’ve been here. You lost a person, and yeah, man, it sucks, sucks bad. But the other squad leaders? They lose two or three every time they go out. The mortality rate is through the roof. You need to get out of here, not only for you, but for your family and your squad. They get stuck in some other shitty platoon and you’re signing their death warrants. I admit it’s fucked up, but our best chance is you.”

  “You amaze me, BT. You always know how to kick a guy right in the feels.”

  “Kiss my ass. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Maybe Randing was right; I’m not fit to command people.”

  “Well no shit. Don’t need to be a frigged-up major to know that. That’s why I run the show; you’re just the figurehead.”

  “That’s what you tell my sister, isn’t it?”

  We were laughing just as Colonel Bennington came in.

  “Colonel.” BT got to the position of attention and saluted.

  I did not salute, though I did acknowledge his presence.

  “Could we have a few moments alone, Gunney?”

  BT lo
oked to me before I nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll talk to you later.” He was pointing to me.

  “Do not bring me any more food.”

  “The more you take, the less I have to eat of it. You can bet your ass I’m bringing more by. Sorry, sir.” Then he left.

  Bennington pulled up a chair.

  “Sir, what are you doing with the nuke?”

  “Direct. That’s the nice thing about you, Lieutenant. There’s no underhandedness. You just put it all out there for everyone to see and damn the torpedoes.”

  “I take it by your witty non-answer, you’re not going to tell me.”

  It was like I’d never even asked the question when he spoke. “Randing wants you out.”

  “Shocker. And you?”

  “I don’t know yet. You have an uncanny ability to get a mission completed.”

  “I lost a man on a mission that didn’t need to happen. The nuke was the primary all along; you had everything you needed from those scientists.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to have the actual men and women that worked on the project to be involved.”

  “Etna is supposed to be a safe haven and you’ve made it explicitly more dangerous and implicated my squad and me in there as well. That virus is not the answer. If you were smart, you would burn all the research and delete the files.”

  “You are being short-sighted on this. We have a weapon that makes killing our enemy a near certainty with any shot. A graze to the fingertip will now kill one of them.”

  “And the one percent that doesn’t die? Who becomes, in essence, a super zombie? What about them?”

  “Unconfirmed.”

  “I’m confirming it. I saw it with my own eyes; my squad saw it.”

  “You’re making my answer on your fate that much easier.”

  “Oh, that’s what this is. I keep my mouth shut about the nuke and the faulty bio-weapon, and everything runs hunky dory? What if I don’t, sir? Do I mysteriously disappear on a secret mission you sent me on in the middle of the night? My squad won’t buy it.”

  “I’m not sure what kind of conspiracy theory videos you used to lose sleep over late at night, Lieutenant, but I’m not in the habit of making my men disappear. In case your little trip to New York wasn’t proof enough, we’re getting our collective asses handed to us. The brainiacs over in the think tank give humanity a two-percent chance of survival, and usually, I believe they tend to err on the side of caution; this time, I think they’re being optimistic. Maybe because to think otherwise makes it all futile and worthless. The doomsday clock is quite literally on midnight. Right now, the zombies’ overwhelming numbers will be our undoing; the math shows it; you’ve seen it firsthand. So that means at this very moment in history, I have to do whatever I can to make sure the few of us that are still here, stay that way. If there are, indeed, a smart one percent of zombies left after we’ve unleashed our weapon, then we’ll be on equal footing.”

  I was still locked on the conspiracy theory part. When someone says you aren’t in one, that’s more than enough reason to believe you are. “Wait, one percent? That’s all that’s left of people?”

  He nodded; there was a grim set to his lips. “Less than that. At best, we believe there are ten million people still alive, and the vast majority of them are individuals or scattered into small groups.”

  “Ten million?” The number sounded monstrous in regard to any particular city’s population, but spread throughout the entire world, it was paltry. Had to be thousands of years B.C. the last time people were so few, and even then, we were on the uptick. Here and now, we were still losing numbers; if the colonel was right, individuals weren’t making babies and small groups would not be so inclined to bear children while constantly fighting, hiding or running. “How many zombies?”

  He sat down heavily in the chair Tracy had used earlier. “Somewhere just north of two and a half billion.”

  I whistled; couldn’t help it. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew the figures were somewhere along those lines, it only made sense. “How much time do they estimate we have left?”

  “Now you’re asking the questions you need to, but I’m afraid you’re not going to like the answer.”

  “There’s a lot I don’t like. What’s one more thing?”

  He smiled a little before leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner. “What I am about to tell you does not go out of this room.”

  “I’m in a cell; can’t go anywhere anyway.”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “They let you in?”

  “Didn’t even try…all that camping and hiking made me itchy, and knot-tying…don’t even get me started on that.”

  “Three years,” he said as a way to shut me up. “If things keep going as they are, we have three years. Sure, there will be people that will live out their normal lifespan, but as a viable population with a significant gene pool, we will hit the teeter point in three years. After that, there will be no bounce-back. So yeah, I’m going to make some extreme decisions and some radical moves, that, hopefully, may walk that number back until such time someone that knows more than me can come up with a better idea, or an outright solution. I don’t have all the answers, Talbot. I’m scrambling, just like everyone else. Want to know something?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really; doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere.”

  “Then talk away.”

  “I was all set to retire. Had my papers in, my CO had signed off on them. I was going to spend the rest of my days down in the Bahamas with my wife, collect my military retirement pay, sip those fancy drinks with the umbrellas. I invested my money wisely, made a decent nest egg–enough to live comfortably.”

  “Do colonels make decent pay, or did you have a side business, like the A-Team?”

  “Never really liked cigars,” he answered, referring to Lieutenant Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith’s propensity for them as the leader of said A-Team.

  “It’s my wife with the deep pockets; she’s got DuPont blood in her.”

  She had the type of money where there’s so much wealth you don’t even think about it. As a person who’d spent the majority of his life going paycheck to paycheck, I couldn’t even imagine the relief of burden, having this kind of cash entailed. Never concerned with the next bill, or late charges, or the worst of all–the dreaded “decline” of your payment method as you stand in line at a crowded supermarket. That walk of shame as you leave the store empty handed before the manager can get someone to put all your groceries back. Can’t even tell you how shitty that is; especially if you have a kid with you and they start asking why you’re leaving the food behind. Was heading down that rabbit hole when Bennington began his narrative again.

  “Money is an antiquated notion now. Means nothing. All the money we have couldn’t buy our way out of this. My CO, General Cower, he was the first on the base to get that flu shot, wanted to set an example for his men. I would have been right behind him, but my wife and I were coming back from a trip to the Bahamas…we’d been house hunting. Even put a hefty deposit down on a home four times bigger than we’d ever need, even if all the kids and grandkids came to visit at the same time. My whole life I’d lived frugal, Margaret less so, but I could not begrudge her; she’d grown up a certain way and she was used to it. If she wanted another Louis Vuitton handbag, then it wasn’t my place to stop her. As for the house, I figured what the hell. Let’s enjoy the golden years.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  He waved his hand. “What’s past is past, although I see my Margaret often looking out the window in the direction she believes the Bahamas to be. Most times it’s just a sad look on her face, other times there’s a tear or two. Don’t have the heart to tell her she’s looking the wrong way.”

  “I’d call that wisdom, sir.”

  He laughed. “Probably right. So what happens to you, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, you keep calling me Lieute
nant, so I don’t think I have to go too far out on a limb to say you’re not quite through with me yet.”

  “I don’t know why I let you get away with half the crap you do or say.”

  “It’s because I make you laugh. That’s how I’ve kept my wife from killing me a dozen times over the years.”

  He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Yeah, it’s probably more than a dozen.”

  “There’s going to be a trial. I’ve tried to steer Major Randing off this course, but he wants his pound of flesh.”

  “He’s such a prick.” I let it out long before I thought to censure myself. “Sorry, sir.”

  “I’m well aware he can be difficult. Lucky for you, I’ll be presiding over the proceedings, and unless he can give me anything else worthy of a court-martial than what he’s already presented, you’ll be fine. I’m going to have you released tomorrow on your own recognizance; try not to fuck anything up between now and the trial.”

  “How long are we talking?” I asked as he stood to leave.

  His shoulders sagged; he kept his back to me as he spoke. “I’ve got a feeling if I walked you over to the courtroom now you’d find a way to get into trouble before we got there. Stay close to your wife; she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. If anyone can keep you in line, I would imagine it’d be her.”

  True to his word, Bennington let me out. Apparently, Randing protested, said I was a flight risk. I mean, I was, but fuck him for saying it. Had a couple of weeks until the trial, which was a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it meant myself and my team wouldn’t be going on any missions in the meantime, but bad, because it was always hanging around in the back of my head. Kind of like a dental appointment for a root canal. Nothing quite like waiting for pain.

  First thing I did when I got out was go to Halsey’s fiancee’s apartment. Obviously, she knew, but I felt that she deserved to hear it from me. She was an understandable mess; she no sooner saw me standing in the doorway that she broke out into uncontrollable crying. I stayed with her for four hours, the vast majority of it with her face buried in my chest as she sobbed. When she had finally cried herself out, I gently eased her head down onto a pillow on the couch, covered her up with a small blanket before getting ready to head out. I looked over to the kitchen table; it was piled high with Halsey’s clothes and some of his possessions. I imagined her holding those things in her hands, bringing them up to her nose, trying to find some residual trace of the man she loved in the things he wore or used. I was familiar with the breadth of her grief, but perhaps not the depth of it. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I never wanted to be, either.