Chapter 15
Carlie watched a few video feeds that
General Adams’ staff had recorded of the initial outbreak near the French
Quarter. A 700-foot U.S. freighter had lost control of its steering and
collided into a riverside park full of afternoon picnickers. The impact caused
half of the riverfront to collapse and sent thousands of terrified people into
the streets. The multi-agency response wiped out a large portion of the city’s emergency
responders and law-enforcement agencies who were the first to be exposed to the
deadly contagion.
Carlie kept reviewing one video in
particular that featured live interview footage of a survivor thirty minutes
after the event. A thin black woman was talking to the camera.
“People were jumping into the
Mississippi when the freighter struck. Others were scrambling to grab injured
friends. I got out and went back around the side to help others when I saw the
boat captain staggering around. His face was baked yellow and all wrinkly. I
was moving up to help him but then he rushed towards a young woman and her
baby. He lost his footing on the battered dock and fell into the Mississippi.”
Shane and Matias were leaning over
either shoulder watching the footage. “Sounds like this unfolded quickly just
like it did in Arizona,” said Matias.
“How can you react to something that
moves so fast? All you can do is get out of the way. No wonder there are so few
survivors in most of the large cities,” said Shane.
“Where was the freighter coming from?”
said Amy.
“Cuba, actually, if you can believe
that,” said Carlie.
“Was this another one of those refugee
boats like you hear about coming out of Haiti?” said Jared.
“No—humanitarian. Our government and
many others, for the second time since 1963, was sending 22,000 tons of corn
there to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitchel that ripped through Cuba
last month.”
Carlie heard the pilot’s voice shouting
back. “Five minutes to the LZ.”
“Copy that,” she said, giving everyone a
thumbs-up while closing the ruggedized mobile laptop. She looked over at Shane.
“As we discussed earlier, once we reach the freighter, I’d like you to lead
that phase of the op. You have far more experience boarding vessels than anyone
here.”
“That’s fine by me. Besides, a good
leader knows when to delegate,” he said, racking the slide on his M4. “By the
looks of it, the vessel is a Handymax Series B bulk freighter so the entrance
to the cargo hold will be at the stern—or
rear
of the ship for those of
you who are landlubbers.”
“Look who’s talking, you desert rat—you’d
been living in Arizona longer than me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s worked out OK for me
so far,” he said, winking at Carlie and then returning to checking his vest for
magazines.
Carlie unbuckled herself from her seat
and moved across the cabin towards Jared. She sat beside him and unfurled the
map in her hand. “You’re sure this is the best avenue of approach to the waterfront?”
she said, pointing her finger at the highlighted circle on the map.
“You’ve asked me that three times now.
I’m beginning to think you just enjoy my company.”
She gave him a hard look and tapped her
finger on the map again. “I sweated my tail off on those streets for years with
my old man when I was younger. I know my way around there like a flea on a
coondog’s ass.”
As the helo circled the wrecked
storefronts along the river, Carlie craned her head away from the map and could
see the wrecked freighter in the moonlight.
“Set down on that twelve-story hotel a mile
to the south,” she yelled to the pilot over the rotor wash. She looked around
at the other operators in the cabin. “My team will head over to the frigate and
into the cargo hold down below while Boyd’s team maintains a secure perimeter
on the outside. SAT imagery from General Adams indicates that the nearest
concentration of creatures is about a half-mile out from here but there are
sure to be stragglers roaming around. With sunrise not far off, there ain’t
gonna be any time for sightseeing.”
“Thirty seconds,” shouted the pilot.
Shane leaned over towards Amy and Jared.
“If anything does go down, just remember your muzzle control. You’re both used
to high-stress situations, so rely on your breathing and mental focus,” he
paused, looking at Jared, “…or whatever the hell voodoo you use to stay calm.”
As the Blackhawk descended, a swirl of leaves
and debris spun around the rooftop. Carlie looked at her two teams and saw that
everyone was ready. She noticed Boyd looking away from her with a smirk. She
found herself already irritated by the man and they hadn’t even seen action
together. Maybe he’d be different on the battlefield, though she hated going
into combat blind with men she only knew from personnel files. It seemed like
every time Carlie entered a new group of operators, she had to fight her way
through their convoluted gauntlet of respect to a degree unlike her male
counterparts.
She pulled her scrutinizing gaze away
from Boyd as the helo came to a standstill on the derelict roof of the Westin Hotel,
eight hundred yards from the Mississippi River.
Chapter 16
The doors of the Blackhawk slid back and
both teams exited. Boyd led his team of five operators along the rooftop,
sweeping for hostiles. Once the area was deemed secure, he instructed one man
to position himself on the south side of the roof with his sniper rifle trained
on the riverfront. He and his remaining men followed Carlie and her team down the
stairwell to the lobby.
Carlie and Shane led the way, followed by
Amy and Jared, with Matias in the rear. They moved down the gray corridor with
their flashlight-mounted weapons illuminating the path that led to ground level.
Their boots clanked on the metal steps and the muffled sound of nervous
breathing filled the stairwell.
Once the lobby was secure, Carlie
whispered to the rear for Jared to come up. “You’re up front with me until we
get to the freighter. I know we already went over the route on paper but that’s
a different beast than having boots on the ground. You’re my mobile GPS unit so
if we need to head a different route or duck into an alley, let me know.”
“Happy to be at your backside,” said
Jared, who placed his hand on Carlie’s shoulder. She glanced at him and frowned,
causing him to remove it as quickly as he had placed it there.
Carlie returned to scanning the partly
illuminated street, the outside of which was littered with burnt cars and
shattered storefronts.
“Looks like the week after Mardi Gras,” Jared
said. “The best way to the freighter is to head right on Iberville Street here and
then over the tracks to the riverfront. There’s a sidewalk that skirts along
the Mississippi. After that, it should be about a straight shot to the crash
site. After that, we can retreat the same way or head through the French
Quarter along some backstreets I know of in the red-light district.”
“Everybody hear that?” whispered Carlie.
“My team will run point and plow the road ahead if necessary. Boyd—you and your
team will fall in behind us and provide cover support,” she said, glaring at
the sergeant.
After she saw everyone giving the
thumbs-up sign behind her, Carlie stepped through the gaping hole in the lobby
window and onto the sidewalk, with everyone falling in behind her single-file.
Chapter 17
Doctor Efron was hovering over a
microscope, analyzing a new slide as the rest of his staff bustled around the
laboratory. He would look at the blood sample for a moment and then abruptly pull
back, comparing his notes on the clipboard beside him with the calculations in
his head.
These samples are mutating at a
different rate than they were yesterday. What the hell is going on? With a
virus that moves this fast, I better get some fresh blood for comparison.
He started
tapping his fingers on the steel countertop, then he reached for the
inter-office phone on the wall and dialed in a three-digit number.
“General Adams, this is Efron. I need to
go down into B-wing and extract fresh blood samples from some of the captive
mutants.”
“Very well, I’ll send a team of my men
down to accompany you.”
A few minutes later, Efron was met
outside the vault-like door of the lab by six soldiers clad in desert tan
fatigues. Each man was equipped with M4 rifles and large canisters of pepper
spray. Corporal Avery, a barrel-chested man who had a stained front tooth from
too many years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes, nodded at Efron.
“Time to lasso another meathead, Doc?”
“Yes, I need to obtain some additional blood
for my experiments.”
“Ya know, if you said that with a
crooked grin, you’d make it sound even creepier,” Avery said, then proceeded to
lead Efron and the rest of his group down the hallway.
They walked down a series of corridors for
fifteen minutes, passing the chow hall, sleeping areas, and armory until they
reached the rear of the missile range facility. Avery tapped a security code
into the keypad which opened a steel door that led down another long hallway.
As they rounded the corner to the last cement
passage, Efron saw a large bay door straight ahead that was closed. To the
right were four empty missile containment chambers. The front of each ten-by-twenty
room was made of heavy-gauge metal bars that were anchored in the cement of the
floor and ceiling. All but one room contained missile launch components. The last
one held four soldiers who had been attacked a few days earlier while returning
from outside the compound in their truck. Before the men had turned, General Adams
ordered the soldiers on site to quarantine the infected inside the empty
containment cell. Efron later requested to keep them intact to observe any
changes and provide him with blood samples rather than risk sending someone
outside again.
Leaning against the wall beside the rooms
were two eight-foot poles with restraining nooses. These had previously been
used by ranchers in the area for subduing calves during immunization roundups.
As they approached, Efron could hear the
sickening chortle of grating teeth and the moaning sounds of the undead consigned
to the inky black chamber. Avery walked over to a nearby circuit breaker and
flipped a switch, turning on the lights inside the darkened rooms.
“Suit up, everyone,” said Avery, who
donned a heavy pair of latex gloves and a face shield while his men and Efron
did the same.
As the fluorescent lights flickered on in
each chamber, the creatures inside rushed forward, slamming their decaying
extremities through the bars. Efron stepped back, his stomach tightening. Even
though he had done this twice before, he found his eyes darting along the
supports of the metal bars to make sure there really was a secure barrier
between them.
“Let’s go, you fucking meatheads,”
shouted Avery while we waved his arms around in the air.
Efron moved up slightly and examined the
four creatures that were pawing at the air and snapping their jaws while their
eyes shifted greedily between each of the soldiers. “I need a sample from the
thin one to the right,” said Efron, pointing to a thin figure with a custard-
colored face. “That’s the only one I haven’t tested yet and it may yield some
new results.”
“Good thing the rest of the personnel
don’t know these craggy pus-brains are down here or they’d be getting even less
sleep than they are now,” said Avery, motioning to his men to move forward with
their canisters of pepper spray.
The soldiers unleashed the scarlet
liquid onto the faces of the three zombies to the left which caused them to
forcefully recoil into the wall with shrieks. The wispy creature to the right
paid no attention to the others and continued thrusting its arms through the
grate so violently that it sloughed off sections of its forearm skin. The decomposing
flesh hung on the bars as if a molting snake had just passed over it.
With the other zombies temporarily
disabled, Avery moved up and fired his Taser into the frail figure before him.
The barbed leads embedded themselves into the yellow skin below the clavicles.
As soon it began shuddering from the voltage, one of Avery’s men moved in with
the pole-noose and slipped it through the bars, securing it around the
creature’s neck.
It took three men to hold the pole still
while Avery kept depressing his finger on the Taser trigger, sending burst after
burst of electrical shocks into the tiring creature. After thirty seconds, the
wispy figure went limp and Efron quickly rushed forward and grabbed the
forearm. He yanked the shriveled appendage through the bars while another
soldier restrained the bony hand.
Efron inserted a syringe into what
resembled a vein near the exposed pulp of the forearm, watching it slowly fill
with the murky reddish-orange liquid. When he was through he placed the syringe
in a small padded container and closed it up.
The soldier squatting beside Efron let
go of the creature’s spindly fingers and both men moved out of the way as Avery
stepped forward and gave one last jolt on the Taser while motioning his other
men to remove the pole-lasso. As Avery moved up to the bars to detach the
electrical wires, the inner cuff of his right sleeve brushed against a
miniscule strand of putrid flesh hanging off the bars.
Efron and the others removed their
gloves and face masks and tossed them in a burn barrel near the bay door then
doused their hands with hand sanitizer. “Alright, let’s get Doctor Frankenstein
back to his lab and then we’ll have the sanitation crew torch the shit in the
barrel,” said Avery, flicking the lights off on the chambers as the creatures
began staggering back towards the bars.
“Nighty-night, you fucking meatheads.”
As they moved back along the dimly lit
corridor, Efron hoped this would be his last visit to this wretched part of the
base but he knew that no researcher is fortunate enough to solve so complex a
riddle as the one inflicted upon the world.
After Efron returned to his lab, Avery
returned with his men to his post working in the armory. He hoped that he would
never have to revisit the grisly dungeon below again with Efron and he hardly
noticed the warm sensation in his right wrist near an abrasion he had received
a few days earlier. Avery looked down and saw a dried bead of blood and skin on
his sleeve. He gasped as he quickly realized its origins. Then he nervously
looked around to see if anyone had noticed as he retreated into the shadows
near some wall lockers while the warmth in his wrist rapidly spread and the
memories of his life began trickling away like precious grains of sand lost to
an all-consuming wind.