Authors: S. A. Lusher
It had long arms and legs, was skeletal thin and yet somehow wrapped in tight, lean, corded muscle. The skin was the color of death, with black veins shooting through it like a road map of Hell. The head was slender, the eyes narrow, crimson slits, the jaw too broad, full of gleaming, razor sharp teeth. Greg felt a ripple of disgust shudder through him.
“It appears our visitor from the basement might not be such an anomaly,” Cage stated, giving the ghastly creature a shove with his shotgun.
“
What do you mean?” Greg frowned, looking at the other man.
“
I'm not sure yet, but I believe we may be looking at the next stage of transcendence in our infected foes. They might divide into different classes, given enough time-”
The beast twitched and Cage's shotgun spoke a third time. The blast vaporized the thing's head in a thick, vile spray of black gore.
“We should leave, and report our findings to the military at once.” Cage’s face creased deep with disgust.
Greg agreed, but as they stepped outside, back into the rain, he lost an internal battle, turned to the side and vomited.
Chapter 13
Jackson burned, lighting up the sky with an orange glow.
Greg felt a sharp bolt of fear lance his gut, cutting into it with a frozen intensity, as he spied the vast palls of black smoke billowing into the gray skies. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, terror shooting through his psyche as ugly possibilities blossomed in his mind's eye. He envisioned the city and the base they made for overrun with the undead, razor teeth rending flesh and snapping bone. Gallons of blood, glistening and fresh.
Kyra had a much cooler head. He heard her speak over the radio, attempting communication with Fort Jackson.
“
This is Fort Jackson, we hear you, Lance Corporal. Proceed to the south entrance, exit your vehicles and slowly enter the garage there,”
a clipped voice replied.
“
Affirmative.”
Kyra closed down the channel. Greg glanced over, peering at her briefly through the windows, her jeep just a few meters to the right of his. She caught him looking at her and flashed him a quick smile.
Greg relaxed. Something new slithered into his gut. Excitement. There would surely be information in this base. He might find some more clues about himself, his past. That, and, well, Kyra was there. This might be a moment of calm.
They pulled up to the garage and were immediately blinded by powerful floodlights that flared into existence.
“Out! Now!”
The fear returned, swelling to consume him. Greg fought it as he killed the engine, opened the door and stepped out, his hands in the air, palms out. This was a moment of truth, a leap of faith. Greg had a flash from back at the outpost, the ex-soldiers that had shown up, planning to kill him and rape Kyra.
He spied half a dozen men in haz-mat gear, their faces hidden behind gasmasks. Greg squinted, spotting more on the roof, armed with sniper rifles and manning the floodlights. He glanced over. Kyra and Cage exited their jeeps, Kyra taking longer than Cage.
“
How many are you?” one of them shouted.
“
Three,” Greg shouted back.
There was a brief pause as the one who seemed to be in charge had a quick meeting with the others, then, abruptly, they all marched forward. The half dozen soldiers covered them with shotguns and long-barreled precision shot rifles. They motioned for Greg, Kyra and Cage to come forward. Four soldiers broke off to inspect the jeeps.
“Come inside.” The leader was quieter now, though the steel remained in his voice. They followed him.
Greg watched the body language of the soldiers as they made their way into the open-faced garage, reading a great deal of tension. There were more soldiers inside, some of them in haz-mat gear, some not. They all held weapons of some kind. Most of the garage floor was clear. A ring of foldout tables, their tops scattered with tools, broken down guns, and equipment, ran around the edge of the room. It was very quiet.
“What's going on?” Greg asked finally.
“
Quiet,” the man in charge snapped.
“
Jeeps are empty. Just supplies,” one of the soldiers called. Greg glanced behind him. Three of the four men were now behind the wheels of the vehicles. The fourth came back to the garage.
“
All right, bring them in. Start unloading them.”
Greg let his fear give way to anger when a door opened and a new figure stepped out. He was tall, wore a pressed uniform, and sported a high-and-tight haircut. He strode purposefully towards Greg and the others. He stopped an arm's length away from them.
“Lance Corporal Mercer?” He clasped his hands behind his back.
“
Staff Sergeant Lynch.” Kyra appeared to relax. He offered the three of them a tight smile. Greg saw that he had bags beneath his bloodshot eyes.
“
I apologize for the rough introduction.”
Greg heard the jeeps pull in behind them. A moment later, as the engines died, the rumble of the huge garage door closing sounded.
“Was that really necessary?” Kyra’s voice was edged with anger.
“
I'm afraid so. We've had former SI personnel and even some of our own boys attempt raids on this base. Two of them have been more...disruptive than we hoped. They're getting smarter, and more lethal. We had to be sure.”
He stared at them for a moment longer. Greg still felt tension on the air. The dozen and a half soldiers that lingered still covered them with weapons.
“So what are we waiting for?” Greg decided to ask.
Lynch glanced at his wristwatch, waited another moment, and then smiled. “For you three to pass the test.”
“Test?”
“
Yes. Turn time from perfectly normal human to screaming, insane Zombie is presently at five minutes, which is highly disturbing, considering we were originally hearing reports of up to half an hour. So, you all passed, and it looks like you came through on supplies.” Lynch turned and extended his hand towards the door. “Come.”
He led them out of the tense garage area and into the chaotic interior of Fort Jackson. Marines and Security-Investigation personnel ran every which way, carrying guns, supplies, wounded, and infopads.
“You're working with SI, then?” Kyra spied the mix.
Lynch nodded. “Yes, and some civvies, too. Anyone who can hold a gun and follow an order with any sort of competence, really.”
“You seem busy...any particular reason you're coming to see us personally?” Greg asked. “Not that I'm complaining.”
“
Honestly? I need a fucking break. Here, here's my office.”
They slipped into a brightly-lit room that immediately hushed the din of activity in the corridor beyond when Lynch closed the door behind them. Greg glanced around as Lynch took a seat behind his broad desk. The walls were mostly bare, no paintings, no pictures, just a small glass display with three medals inside. The desktop was covered in infopads. A large black and silver pistol accompanied them, as well as a trio of spare clips.
“Sorry I don't have more chairs. It's been hell.” Lynch reached down, fumbled in one of the drawers for a moment, and came up with a battered silver flask. He twisted the cap off and drank deeply from it.
“
You're drinking on duty?” Cage’s ice cold voice was back.
“
Hell, yes. I've been on-fucking-duty for damn near a week now. Do you know how many hours I've spent in this fucking office?” He tossed the flask onto the desk and gestured angrily at the terminal built into its top. “And
this
fucking thing...worse than my ex-wife. I can't get a minute away from it. Always new reports coming in, decisions to make, causality reports, infection statistics...” He heaved an explosive sigh.
“
I'm sorry for all this. Heh. If my superiors saw me acting like this in front of a bunch of SI lackeys...sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I haven't slept in about two days. The SI guys have proven very useful.”
“
I'm afraid I must cut in for a moment,” Cage said. Everyone looked at him. “Have you encountered mutations?”
That seemed to grab Lynch's attention and focus him somewhat. “I've started hearing rumors and scattered reports, but we've been honestly too busy to verify that. Shit, it's been total chaos. Have you encountered these mutations? We've been afraid of that, what with the infection time getting quicker and those fucking Zulus getting better...”
Greg spoke up now. “We've encountered two. One of them was huge, ten feet tall, raw muscle, extreme powerful and hard to kill. The other was thin, almost skeletal, but incredibly stealthy. It could navigate ventilation shafts with ease.”
“
This...is not good. I'm going to need a full report on these two things before I let you go.” Lynch shifted in his seat. He opened one of the drawers on his desk and pulled out a cigar. Regarding it tiredly for a long moment, he finally lit it up and took a deep pull.
“
Before that...can we get some kind of idea of what's happening?” Kyra looked at Greg and Cage before returning her gaze to Lynch. “We've pretty much been in the dark since we woke up and found the undead wandering around.”
Lynch nodded, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “Oh, fuck...where to begin? It all started about a week ago when we began getting weird transmissions out of the wastelands, your area, up north. Then our outposts started going dark. We sent a few teams up to figure out what the fuck was happening...and they didn't come back. Then we lost communications...and that's when the ships we sent came back, as well as some others. A handful of them crash-landed in the more heavily populated areas of Jackson. Within
hours
, the infection spread like wildfire.
“
Those were practically plague ships. A few of them still had people, but the others were full of Zulus. The communications blackout made it difficult to coordinate. We've since managed to set up a new comms array and your repairs on the comms relay out in the wasteland has helped greatly. The infection spread like crazy and we've been doing everything we can, mostly just trying to establish some kind of beachhead in the city and getting civilians the hell out.
“
We're running sweep and clear operations at isolated locations, small colonies or outposts, any kind of structure, really, and getting civvies out of there. There just aren't enough men, ships, or supplies...” He heaved another weary sigh.
“
What about the rest of the planet? Or help from the outside?”
“
With the communications net as fucked up as it is I haven't been able to get into contact with any of the other major cities, let alone someone off world. I've had someone trying to get a message out of system for help, but right now I'm just trying to contain the crisis here. The base is constantly under attack...now how about those reports?”
Greg sighed.
Lynch proceeded to hit them with a variety of questions, trying to get every conceivable detail out of them about the two creatures, as well as the apparent intelligence in the creatures they had encountered so far. As the debriefing stretched on, Greg felt this was something he'd done before…many times before. Reporting to a superior about all the details seemed routine. It wasn’t exactly a happy realization.
“
Okay, so...I gotta ask right now, which one of you is handy with sniping?” Lynch asked after finishing up his line of inquiry.
Cage spoke up. “I am.”
“Okay. Good. It'd be great if you could grab a sniper rifle, some rounds and head up to the roof. You can get a clear view of the immediate area. There are a lot of Zs that need putting down. You up to it?”
Cage nodded. “Yes.”
“All right. Thanks.” Cage left the room. Lynch fixed Greg and Kyra with his gaze. “Now, I'm officially inducting you two into the Marines. You'll retain your ranks and head out into the field pretty soon. Right now, we're mostly running rescue missions and resupply runs. I'll find you a team...Greg, you look uncomfortable. What's up?”
“
Well, I have an unusual request.”
Lynch inclined his head.
“I need to look at my personnel file. Would you have it here, at the base?” Lynch frowned and turned to his terminal.
“
Yeah, I suppose so. We're plugged into SI and most of that data is stored on-site...full name and rank, and where your outpost was.” He held his hands poised over the keypad.
“
Well...that's just the thing.” Greg shifted. “I...can't remember.”
Lynch looked directly at him now.
“What?”
“
I woke up in a crashed ship in the wastelands a few days ago. I can't remember anything about myself. I found out my name through a badge, which had the ranked burned off. I'm pretty sure I must have been a soldier with SI, because of my uniform and my skills.”
“
This is...rather interesting, and also, a huge combat liability. Have you been checked out by a medic?”
“
No. It's just been the three of us. My head doesn't hurt. I don't seem to have any impairment of any kind, besides the memory thing.”
“
He's been preforming excellently. Cage can back me up on this.” Kyra put her two cents in.
Lynch seemed to consider this for a moment, before shrugging and turning back to his terminal. “Beggars can't be choosers. What's your full name then?”
“Greg Bishop.”
Lynch spent a few moments typing away. Finally, he stopped, looked to Greg, then back to the terminal, then to Greg again.
“All right. I found you.” He grabbed an infopad and hooked it to his terminal. “I'll download your profile and then find you guys some quarters. We're pretty low on space right now, so you two and Cage will have to share one of the dorms. I'll slack off a bit longer and show you the way, and then I'd really better get back to it.”
Lynch stood, handed the infopad over to Greg and then led them back out into the bedlam. They navigated the base, hurrying through crowded corridors and junctions. It took every ounce of strength Greg had not to start looking through the information. He knew that a personnel profile would only fill in some of the blanks. It was a start. Maybe it would jump-start his memory. He would at
least
know what rank he was.