O-Negative: Extinction (30 page)

“Hey Annette how much longer are we going to travel?  My ass is beginning to go numb”.

She knew she had to say something but knew that now wasn’t the time to be getting too truthful “Grita we’ve still got a way to go I’m afraid.  I’m taking you up to a big summer camp that some friends of mine run in Colorado”.

“Wow summer camp – I always wanted to go to one of those.  Are we going to get to do all sorts of activities and stuff?”

She smiled at this.  “Well we’ll have to see but yes there will probably be opportunities to do a number of activities”.

A girl called Eva who was a bit more astute than some of others wasn’t entirely convinced by this.  “But why so far from home Annie?  Couldn’t we have laid up a bit closer to Dallas?”

“We could have Eva but as I said a friend of mine offered this place in Colorado and I thought it might be nice to go somewhere where there’s mountains and fresh air.  If you like I can leave you here if you’d prefer”.

Some of the girls looked around at the hot dusty service area in out of the way Texas and laughed.  Grita came back with “Hey no way Annie this place looks dead as a dodo – as long as this camp has got access to wine and a few guys I’m getting back on the bus”.

She laughed herself at this “I can’t promise the wine Grita but the camp’s located close to an army base so you’ll probably be able to rustle up a few guys”

This seemed to perk up the flagging spirits of the women in her group and the questions dissipated.   Back on the bus Sebastian said quietly.  “You’re a natural at all this Annette.  I’m surprised you never ended up as politician”.

“Well not much difference I guess Sebastian – in my business it’s all about keeping people happy which in a way is all that politicians do.  I just hope they don’t lynch me when we turn up at your ‘Holiday Park’”.

Sebastian chuckled but with an element of concern in his voice.  “Me too Annette me too”.

Five and half hours later the coaches reached a large gate manned by a number of soldiers.  Sebastian got out to talk with the sergeant in charge while the women in her bus blew kisses to the rather surprised guards.  A couple of minutes later their now quite substantial convoy rolled on through the gates and began a steep accent up a wide but windy road.

Sebastian noted to her “Looks like your pal Alek has already arrived.  They’ve taken everyone into one of the mess areas and given them a meal.  The Colonel will address everyone after we get there and they shut the doors.  Her heart started racing at the thought of what that was going to happen when this happened.

“Don’t look so worried Annette.  In the end none of us have much choice in the matter.  The bunker doors will simply be shut and won’t be opened again until all this is over – God help us all.”

“Shit this is real isn’t it.  Up until now it’s seemed a bit like a dream.  The reality is really beginning to hit”.

15 minutes later the buses started to disgorge their tired and weary passengers.  Tabitha approached her with her hips swinging “Annie I know you said we’d be close to a military base, but I didn’t realise you meant this close.  Are we staying the night here?

“Yep we are Tabitha.  We’re going to get a bit of chow and then I’ll fill you in on what the score is”.

“Fill us in.  I thought you’d already filled us in.  Is something going on here that I don’t know about?  You’re not leaving us here to be experimented on by the military or something are you?” At that moment Tabitha spotted lines of younger teenagers under the supposed control of a few harassed looking teachers filing into the base.  “Hey and what the hell are all these kids doing here – are they going to be on the camp at the same time as us?  Isn’t that going to cramp our style a bit?”

“Tabby I can assure you I’m not leaving you.  Everything that happens to you will also be happening to me….err and yes the kids are going to be sharing the ‘camp’ with us. Now come on let’s get some food.  I’m starving”

At that she followed the rest of the group that was now congregating at the entrance to the base.  With such a large load of people arriving at the same time there was a bit of a crush as they filtered in through the huge concrete doors.  She could hear the somewhat amazed comments of the women.

“Gee I never thought I’d get to look around a bona fide bunker.” “Look at the size of those doors”.  “Shit I hope they don’t close them I get claustrophobic in tight spaces” “Don’t like the look of this but at least we won’t be short of a bit of eye candy – do you see that big guy with the blond hair – I wouldn’t mind pulling his trigger”.

Everyone slowly filed in and were led down a wide sterile corridor by an affable female sergeant called Dawson for what seemed like about 15 minutes, passing a series of identically looking corridors and an occasional non-descript door with numbers like 5234B stamped on them.  She heard one of the Au Pairs saying to Sergeant Dawson ‘Gosh I’m glad you’re guiding us looks like this place is quite a maze?  How big is it?’ Sergeant Dawson was saved from having to answer by their arrival at a large spiral staircase.  “Right ladies and gents down the stairs three floors and then second door on the right.  We do have lifts but they are to be used on operational business only.  Which basically means not very often.  Getting chow for example is not operational business”.  With that she set off down the flight of stairs trailed by the rag bag mix of prostitutes, Au Pairs and teenage children all of whom were beginning to ask each other questions which at the moment had no answers. 

The stairway was like everything else concrete in construction and seemed to have been built in such a way that each level could be sealed off from the next - large metal doors being latched back at the entrance to each floor that they passed.  By the time they entered the mess area through a set of double doors she was beginning to feel slightly claustrophobic at the thought of how far into the mountain the base must extend.   It was a relief therefore to walk into a huge open space lit by artificial light where hundreds of other women were sitting at tables eating.  The room must have been the size of a couple of soccer pitches and even once her group had been led in the space still felt very empty.  She couldn’t remember seeing such a huge room. 

Though there were a few soldiers serving food out of the galley hatches that lined one of the walls on the far side of the room there had obviously been a concerted effort to play down the military presence. 

The young teenagers and the Au Pairs were led to an area on another side of the hall while the working girls were encouraged to make their way towards the main seating area.  It wasn’t long before some of the women in Alek’s party spotted others in her’s that they knew and there were various exclamations in a combination of Eastern European languages and English.  “Shit Kazia what the hell are you doing here?”.  “Hey Natasha there’s Irena”.  They seemed surprised to see each other but were soon sitting down next to one another asking what was going on”.

Sebastian led her towards a long table located near the back wall.  She could see the Colonel and Alek discussing something vigorously.  Alek didn’t look too happy but then she couldn’t blame him, she didn’t feel that happy herself.  Alek’s 30 or so men and drivers were all positioned on a couple of tables near a group of apparently ‘lounging’ soldiers – she could see from the look on one of the Sergeants’ faces that they were anything but lounging and appeared to be there to make sure none of Alek’s men caused any trouble.  

At her arrival the Colonel rose and offered her a seat opposite him, Alek gave her a sort of resigned looking wave.  “Hi Annie welcome to the party”. 

As she sat down the Colonel moved to one side with Sebastian and had a whispered conversation with him.  Sebastian gave her a thumbs up and then proceeded to exit the huge mess area – undoubtedly to give the order to shut the bunker doors.  ‘Gods this was it’.  She prayed it wouldn’t be for too long and that the worst case scenario described to in her apartment only four days ago, wouldn’t actually come to fruition.

The Colonel sat down next to her.  “Annette good to see you.  I don’t think we could have got all these women here without you.  I know this isn’t ideal; hell I joined the army to be a soldier not to be an administrator for a survival community.”

The Colonel’s openness reassured her somewhat and she smiled at him weakly.  “Good to see you to Colonel.  I take it the Major’s shutting the doors as we speak?”

“He is.  We’ve also just received reports that the remaining 5 objects we were previously tracking have landed.  One of them landed in Death Valley and it would appear that we’ve lost contact with the main population centres in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.  We still have some communication with some of the ‘survival protocol’ military bases in these States but several have reported the sounds of drilling coming from above them.  It doesn’t look good.  Lets hope we’re far enough away that we’re left alone.”

“So it’s happening as feared.”  Annette put her hand to her mouth and felt tears forming in her eyes.

The Colonel put his hand on hers and said quietly.  “I’m afraid so Annette.  But listen as hard as it might be I’m going to need you when I address everyone here.  I’ve received a communication from the President giving me executive power, basically judge and jury over everyone in this facility but putting so much power in one person’s hands seems like a recipe for disaster and so I’m forming a sort of triumvirate leadership council.  Along with myself, who will have responsibility for the military personnel I’m going to appoint someone from the civilian science teams that we’ve got housed two storeys below us and I’d like you to act as the other member of the leadership council.  You’ll be responsible for all the women you and Alek have brought in.  Alek and his men will fall under your command.  He’s been told this and he’s not happy but I told him it was that or fall under my command and he seemed to prefer you as his commander than me.”

She felt overwhelmed at what the Colonel was suggesting.  “Colonel are you sure.  Most of these women are going to hate me when they realise I’m responsible for all this”.

“Annette you’re wrong.  Most of these women will be grateful and will look to you to act as their representative over the coming days and weeks.  You’re going to have your hands full no doubt and you’ll need to appoint a team to help you get through this but I’m sure you’ve got what it takes.  So does the President.  In his last message to us before we went into radio silence he told me to ‘trust in Annette.  She is far more capable than she thinks she is’.

Hearing those words from the President tipped her over the edge and she started crying openly.  Some of the women saw this and looking concerned began to get up from their chairs to come over to her but she waved them away.  Through her tears Annette said.  “Colonel I think its time to come clean.”

He nodded and rose from his chair.  He motioned to one side and the sergeant who’d been keeping an eye on Alek’s men rang a bell by the side of one of the galley hatches.  An expectant silence fell over the mess hall.

Despite telling Colonel Faris that they should regroup.  He did not immediately set off to cross the border into Jordan and join the Saudi forces stationed there.  Though permission to do so had been granted he had not felt inclined to move his troops straightaway.  Thinking about this purely from a practical perspective he could not justify the inaction; however in his soul he felt strongly that he should remain where he was for the time being.  Major Gadiz had tried to suggest that they move across the border almost a week ago but he had simply looked at him and the Major had dropped his gaze and retreated from the command tent.  Only now following his last conversation with Faris did a strong feeling to do something come upon on him.

Faris had reported that the Americans had been analysing the survivors coming out of the impacted zone and it appeared that all those who had survived shared a common trait.  They all had the same blood type - O Rhesus D Negative.  Unfortunately this was not a common blood type worldwide and in fact even less common in the Kingdom.  Nevertheless according to his medical team he and 203 of his men had this blood type.  It was this sliver of knowledge that stimulated him into action.  To start with he asked for volunteers from the men with the necessary blood type and was heartened by the unanimously positive response. In the end he chose 10 of the most religiously devout and explained that the mission he was sending them on was likely to end in their death.  He told them they were within their rights to refuse this request, however he did highlight that in his eyes such a death would be no ordinary death but in fact a Jihadist death - approved from on high by Allah.  A death that would guarantee their entry into paradise for all eternity.  Given their previous levels of devotion to Allah and this opportunity to wage a holy Jihad against an enemy that had in all likelihood killed all of their families none of them declined to participate.

The idea was simple and it had come to him in his sleep the previous night.  The dream had been extremely vivid and started with a group of men approaching a tall black monolithic tower.  Even in the dream he could feel the fear of these men but despite this they hadn’t baulked or turned and run, instead each of them had looked up towards heaven, linked hands and continued towards the base of the tower.  Upon reaching the tower they had pressed their faces to the featureless cold black surface and suddenly there was a burst of bright light like an explosion and that’s when he bolted awake in his camp bed.

He had woven this dream into the instructions he’d given the 10 men who were to be participating in the mission.  Spitting the team into three unarmoured vehicles 8 of the men were split between two cars while the remaining two were to stay in the third.  The two containing the eight men were tasked with getting as close to the black tower as they could.  If they were, due to their apparent immunity, able to get past the silvery crab like creatures then they were to push their own bodies against the structure and blow themselves up.  The job of the remaining two soldiers was to follow as observers, to act as witnesses to the rest of the team’s sacrifice.  If they survived whatever happened next they were to return to the base in the Northern desert.  He informed them he would wait two days here and if they had not returned after this time he would begin shifting his forces into Jordan.

When he first described this plan to his senior officers he could see that Major Gadiz and the others thought he had lost it.  However their faith in him remained and if they had any concerns they raised them in private outside of his earshot.  The men who had been selected for the mission were more accepting and took his dream to be of divine providence, created and blessed by the Almighty.  They all remained stoic and calm even when he explained that they would carry no visible arms but would be lining their uniforms with plastic explosives.  Because of the reports that all electronic devices seemed to fail or work intermittently in the affected areas it was one of the chosen men who suggested that the trigger for the explosives be a chemical one.  Captain Jaffa, an engineer by training, showed them how to remove an airtight strip from a piece of ‘flame paper’ setting off a chemical trigger that would be enough to detonate the explosives carried by him and the other men. 

The small team set out the next morning after the Fajr dawn prayer.  He and the rest of the men stood to attention and saluted as they set off in the three desert camouflaged land rovers.  Nobody moved from this position until the dust of the vehicles had vanished from view.  As well as this poignant farewell no one would be eating that day.  He had decreed that instead of their normal duties everyone would fast and devout themselves to prayer in homage to their fellow soldiers. 

Towards the end of the afternoon he was just completing his first rakat of the Maghrib prayer when a rumbling sound reached his ears.  He initially thought it was the sound of the third land rover returning but it quickly became apparent that the noise was too great for that of a single vehicle.  In fact within seconds all that could be heard was a hissing sound, the sound that comes from thousands of feet running across shifting sands.  As the volume increased a feeling of great calmness descended upon him and he found himself shutting his eyes and putting his head to the prayer mat.  He did not raise his head again for several minutes.  When he did bring himself back up to a kneeling position he was greeted by a hellish scene of death and destruction. 

The body of Major Gadiz was lying turned half on its side next to him.  Despite the wound to his throat he looked at peace and his hands were up as if he had simply toppled to one side while in the midst of prayer.   Looking to his left and to his right everyone seemed to be dead, but then in the middle of the Mosque he caught sight of Lieutenant Karim standing amidst further bodies.  He stood himself and looked over at Karim who looked back at him and nodded slightly before moving through the press of bodies to greet him. 

He greeted Karim as if it was the first time they had ever met.  “Salam al alaikum brother.  It is good to see you.  It is the will of Allah.  We are all here but for the grace of God”

Karim replied by rote “Alaikum al Salam brother” but once he had shaken hands Karim dropped to the floor and began weeping rocking back and forth on his knees.

He put his right hand briefing on Karim’s shoulder and then feeling it would be better for him to grieve in peace left the small mud walled Mosque.  Outside he was greeted by a view of the parade ground that caused tears to spring to his eyes - thousands of dead bodies lined up in rows and rows - the dead bodies of his men stretching for 100 metres in front of him.  Like him they had been in the process of praying when the creatures hit.  It was a sight he had difficulty in comprehending.  He was unable to move his head, legs or arms for a time but then as control of his senses returned he began glimpsing glimmers of hope amongst the utter devastation that lay before him.  A man here and there staggering to embrace one another.  But there were not many, Allah’s Passover had saved but a few.

Gathering his own emotions around him like a shield he began to quietly recite the words Allah u Akbar Allah Allah u Akbar.  After a moment or two he found himself saying these words louder and louder over and over again.  The sheer emotion of this caused large salty tears to roll down his face but he did not sob nor stop his recital.  The remaining men including Lieutenant Karim now began to gather around him picking up the rhythm of the words that they all now repeated.  Continuing this he and his men fell to the ground as one and put their heads to the red desert earth.  They were a single brotherhood now united in grief and loss but also in purpose and belief.  A destiny that was as yet unwritten had been thrust upon them, a destiny that would be guided by Allah and Allah alone.  As he rose from his knees he and his men stopped praying and the silence was disturbed only by the distinctive chug of a diesel engine.  The third land rover had returned.

The vehicle stopped outside the mud wall of the base and two men got down before slowly making their way through the thousands of bodies of their comrades.  At one point one of the men was forced to his knees and was sick in one of the few patches of bare ground not covered by the leg or arm or body of a man.    As they came closer Abdul Aziz moved through the small knot of remaining men to greet them as he would a brother as opposed to someone who served under him.

“Jarid, Haroon salam al alaikum.  Peace be upon you brothers.  You see before you what remains of the division. What news do you bring us amongst our inconsolable grief and horror?”

Jarid the older of the two men spoke up “General Allah in his mercy has continued to spare brother Haroon and myself.  Though whether this is a blessing or a curse I am not sure.”  Looking around him he bowed his head humbly before jerking his head up.  The sudden movement causing the flies that had begun to feast on the bodies of his friends to rise up in a crowd around his head.  “Perhaps it is because we are the greatest sinners that we have been saved General?”

He nodded in agreement.  “Perhaps you are right Jarid.  None of us is free of sin.  Whether my sins were lesser or not than the brothers who now lie dead before us I cannot say.  It is not for me to pass judgement on this, the only person with whom that conversation can be had is with Allah the Merciful.  But please tell us was it all in vain?  Did the others travelling with you manage to strike any sort of blow against these Al Ayn evil eyed ones?”

“General they did but whether the price we are now paying is worth what they achieved I don’t know.  As was suspected we were able to pass through the silvery creatures who appeared shortly after we crossed into the affected area without incident.  Despite the evidence of a cataclysmic event on the roads we were able to approach the black tower standing in the desert just outside Riyadh without any additional contact.  Seeing the tower for the first time caused many of us to feel a great fear in our hearts and had it not been for your instruction to hold hands when approaching it I don’t think we would have been able to do so.  While I and Haroon hung back a hundred metres or so the rest of the group moved forward to hug the sheer black walls and linked their arms together.  We then prayed as they prayed and at the end of the Salat Captain Jaffa tore off the airproof strip on his jacket and there was a large explosion.  We ducked so as to avoid the shock wave but surprisingly no shock wave was felt by us – it was almost as if there were a barrier between the structure and us which prevented the force of the blast from radiating to where we stood.  Nevertheless before the dust caused by the explosion cleared thousands and thousands of the silvery robot crabs appeared from circularly holes which opened down the entire length of the structure.  As they dropped to the ground they rushed towards us and I was sure that we were fated to die but instead they simply surrounded us and then milled around not quite seeming to know what to do.

It was at this point that we were able to see that our brothers in paradise had breached the shell of the structure with their actions.  There was evidence of movement inside the structure but within 2 or 3 minutes the breach appeared to be repaired and the surface of the structure appeared as it had been before.  Shortly afterwards the ground, which was carpeted in every direction by the silvery crabs, cleared as they headed off in all directions North, South East and West.  It looked like they were leaving to expand their evil purge further out and returning here to camp would seem to confirm this.  Unfortunately our actions have come at great cost.”

“Jarid.  Thank you.  Though the price has been unimaginably high your words do bring us hope.  Hope that whatever is in the black structure is vulnerable and therefore if not now then at some point in the future ‘beatable’.  Now please I ask that you and Haroon return with Lieutenant Karim to the communications station to broadcast what you have found to those that remain to listen.  I only pray that some do.” 

Raising his voice he then turned to include the rest of the remaining men who had silently listened as Jarid had spoken.  “My brothers, Jarid has returned with news that the Evil Eyed ones can be hurt.” There were ragged cheers at this.  “But now is not the time to consider what this means.  Today we must do what we can to try to bury our brothers in a manner that befits those who follow the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him).” 

One of the eldest of the remaining men came forward at this point.  The man had the look of the Bedouin about him and he knew him as a man of the desert.  “General permission to speak?” 

“Of course brother I am afraid your name escapes me?”. 

“It is Tahnoon Sir”. 

“Please Tahnoon speak”. 

“Well your excellency in the tribe in which I was raised we bury our dead in the traditional way, by placing the body of the deceased at the foot of a great dune and letting the Dune move over them to act as the earth upon them.  Perhaps given the numbers of our dead brothers we might use the same method?  There are a number of great dunes situated to the East of the base.

“Tahnoon thanks you.  I commend you for providing this solution.  I would be grateful if you could coordinate our efforts as you’ve described.”

“Yes of course General”.