Chapter Thirty
Taiwo tried to keep his eyes open as the truck shuddered when the tires ran over several really large rocks. The terrain was uneven and more than a little rough. He was seated beside the driver in the passenger seat watching the unfamiliar landscape drift by. They were on a rough pot holed filled dirt road which looked as if it hadn’t seen traffic in years.
One of the soldiers, a resident of this area insisted this was the road they wanted to be on if they wanted to keep a low profile. His eyes drifted to the side mirror inches from his outstretched arm. The mobile lab was following closely. His eyes narrowed as worry flitted through them. The lab was having more difficulty navigating the rough road. He squinted leaning closer to the mirror. He could just make out the strained somewhat nervous look on the driver’s face as he tried to take the lab around the potholes as gently as he could.
A sigh burst from Taiwo’s lips. He didn’t blame the man for being nervous. Five feet away from the rolling tires was a steep drop of at least fifty feet. That was bad enough in itself, but the ground was caked with mud.
A wide clearing loomed ahead. The earth there looked firm and sturdy. The driver of Taiwo’s truck increased speed gently. A few minutes passed and they were in the clearing. It was just about a hundred meters across, cutting into a two lane express road. Two scores of infected milled around in small groups. Taiwo’s eyes narrowed as he looked at them and he put his arm into the car and quickly wound up the window.
A low chuckle burst from the driver’s lips. Taiwo’s hard gaze settled on his face.
“Why are you laughing?”
“The speed at which you withdrew your arm; better to be safe than sorry right__”
Taiwo’s hard gaze did not soften. Call him a sour grape but he couldn’t find anything remotely amusing about the situation. Seeming to sense this, the driver’s smile faded and he faced the infected that were now tearing towards their convoy.
The sunroof of the truck’s behind theirs popped open and soldiers squeezed through opening fire on the horde heading their way. They dropped them like flies clearing a bloody, rotted carcase filled path to the express road.
Taiwo’s truck got through first, hitting the road with a screech of tires and sparks as the bumper struck the road with a loud clang. The other trucks followed quickly and soon they were speeding due east, the air calm and peaceful once more.
His eyes drifted to the satellite phone lying on the truck’s dashboard. He couldn’t decide whether to call her or not. He didn’t want to spoil her concentration if she was busy __ but they kind of needed the airborne version of the vaccine like YESTERDAY!
His mind made up he reached for the phone.
Catherine rubbed her eyes slowly trying to stiffen a yawn at the same time as she waited for the machine to run through the present combination she was trying. It usually gave a loud irritating ding when it was done which was super annoying. So it was this ding she was waiting for. The ding for the last eight hundred and twenty times she’d tried was the ding of failure. There was no reason to suppose this time would be different.
The satellite phone rang out and she jumped banging her arm on the ceramic counter. “Oowwwwww!!” She yelled leaping to her feet. She circled around in agony for a few seconds before snatching up the phone.
“Who is this?” She growled through clenched teeth.
“Is something wrong?” Taiwo asked. It was the worry she heard in his voice that cooled her rage.
“I am fine__” She sighed. “The ringing of the phone startled me so much I banged my arm.”
“So sorry about that __”
“No biggie __” She sniffed. “I guess you’re calling to ask for a progress report.”
“Well __” His voice drifted off. There was no need to deny it.
“Hang on a minute __” She said bending to look at the machine. Five seconds until she knew. It slowly counted down and gave its usual ding. Her eyes narrowed as she read the results. Her heart started to race. She raced to the computer and ran a visual simulation with the results; she ran the computer’s combination with a sample of infected blood she kept on hand.
After application she put a drop of blood on a slide and ran it under a large microscope. The angry spiky grey looking blood cells slowly shrunk, reddened and became normal. She’d found the right combination. The vaccine was done.
“I think I’ve got it Taiwo __ I think I have got it __” She shrieked.
“Oh my God!” Taiwo gasped hardly daring to believe it. “Oh my GOD!!!”
The compound of the Benin air-force base was massive. Two extra acres had been added since the start of the Boko Haram extremist explosion in the north and Evonso virus eruption. Government had invested heavily on military capability and ordinance in the last six months; a sum many suspected approached three quarters of a billion dollars.
Just recently, twelve Chinese Chengdu F- 7s and eleven Dassault – Donier Alpha jets were added to the fleet. This sum set the Nigerian government back over $370 million; non-inclusive of the five F – 15s donated by the United States as part of its effort in assisting Nigeria in its peace keeping efforts in the African sub-region.
Each air-force base was usually a beehive of activity. But this one looked abandoned. A mesh of barbwire had been erected around the thirty something plus hangers and administrative buildings. They gleamed in the early morning sun. A keen eye would observe they were new and had obviously been put only recently. A sea of infected surrounded the mesh; some were even entangled in it, the cruel barbs firmly lodged in their flesh.
To the casual eye it would appear the buildings beyond the wire mesh were abandoned. But that was not the case. Six shapes moved within the largest building’s confines keeping to the shadows as much as possible.
Wing commander Diran Akinifesi stood some distance behind the four other men peeping out of the window. He was a lean wiry looking man who had a wild eyed look about him. His green flight suit was torn in several places and there were dark bruises under one eye. He looked like he’d just come in from a fight which wasn’t that far from the truth.
One minute they’d been going about their daily duties when everything went crazy. His colleagues, men he’d known for years suddenly went crazy and started eating their comrades. He and the men that remained in this building were the only survivors. But their survival didn’t come by chance. They had to fight their way out through a crowd of flesh hungry infected to get to the sanctuary of this building.
Because of the absence of effective communication it took them several days to discover the Evonso virus had gone air-borne.
They had been holed up here for almost two weeks; many men were starting to hint they abandon this base and find some way to make a bolt for it.
On a normal day Diran might have agreed. But these weren’t normal times, neither were they normal days. They had gone over more than two dozen scenarios; none of which were viable from a realistic stand-point. Some of his officers were still willing to take the risk but he’d been hesitant. He wasn’t sure why exactly. Something just kept telling him that their presence here would be a blessing at some point.
He hadn’t revealed this conviction to his men. They’d probably laugh him to scorn and think he was out of his mind. A tired sigh left his lips as he considered this.
If he wanted to play good cop, bad cop with himself (which wasn’t pleasant all things considered) he’d realize they were slowly running out of time to make any sort of break for it.
Most infected he’d seen and studied didn’t hang around a particular spot. They moved around to hunt; if fresh food became limited or unavailable they most often moved to another area where they continued their feasting until they ran out of uninfected and the cycle continued.
At the current rate, if the few reports they got could be believed; the infected were scheduled to run out of food in the next year or year and a half at most. And yeah it spread that fast ___
/> The hall they were in had once served as the mess hall. Even though he knew it’d just been two weeks, it still felt much longer than that. It felt like a year at least.
The mess hall had been converted to a staging area/HQ. The windows afforded them good views of the surrounding mesh fence, the road directly beyond that led to the gates of the base. Diran eyes saddened as they fixed on it. It was a lost cause. There were almost five hundred infected between them and freedom. His eyes drifted around the hall. There were only twenty five of them. Good luck twenty five getting past five hundred.
At the far right hand of the hall was a small mountain of radio equipment set up on two large tables. A frustrated looking private sat in front of it with DJ style headsets covering his ears. The headsets gave a continuous drone of static; prolonged listening had deafened him a little. His eyes were red and bloodshot and he looked like he was seconds away from collapse.
They were almost knocked over when they heard the break in static and a voice came on.
“This is Corporal Olatunji. Is anyone out there receiving me? Please this is a secure military transmission, are there any military personnel out there who can hear me? We need your help at ONCE!”
Diran raced to the radio with wild eyes. He could hardly believe it. After weeks of trying to establish contact they’d eventually hit the jackpot.
He snatched the radio from the private’s hand and raised it to his lips.
“This is wing commander Diran Akinifesi from the Benin air-force base ___” he swallowed and paused. He’d been on the verge of asking how they might be of assistance when he remembered they needed help too.
“Oh good! For a minute I was afraid we weren’t going to get anyone on the radio. We’ve been trying for hours.”
“Yeah it’s hard ___” Diran agreed quietly. “You’re the first person we’ve spoken to for weeks.”
“That long??? We still got in contact with part of the northern regiment a week ago.”
A long pause followed his words.
“You still there?” Diran asked leaning forward. He had a stricken look on his face as did most of the men in the hall. It wouldn’t do to lose contact now. They might never get it back.
“You there sir?” Diran asked. His voice trembled a bit much to his inner chagrin.
“Yes I am still here. We need your help. One of the doctor’s working on the Evonso virus vaccine has stumbled on a cure ___”
“You sure it’s a real cure?” He asked with a derisive snort. “The cure before the last brought us the darkling’s; and the last radio transmission we received before yours made us believe the attempt at a second vaccine mutated the virus into going air-borne. So am a little sceptical of this supposed cure.”
“I am afraid we do not have the luxury of being suspicious Diran. We have to test it out. We need two Chengdu air-crafts to do it.”
“What do you mean? You want to use the planes to disperse it? Even if we could get the planes off the ground (and that’s a big if) we don’t have enough fuel in them to cover a landmass as vast as Nigeria.”
“I am not sure of the science __ she did try to explain (with the help of a meteorologist) but am afraid it sounded like gibberish to me. But what I could get from what she explained is; the new vaccine’s chemical composition is such that it is able to bond with the air components. It essentially becomes part of the air we breathe. So with a bit of luck the wind will do most of the work for us.”
A breathless silence fell over the hall as the men present drank in his words. Was this real? Or just another sick joke ___ much like the last solution vaccine that only brought more horror.
“So??? ___ you guys still there?”
“We’re there __ but __”
“But what? This is no time for hesitation ___ we need fast, decisive action if any of us are to come out of this in one piece.”
“Sir with all due respect __ I am not sure how much help we can be. We are basically trapped; hiding in what used to be the mess hall. We’re surrounded by at least five hundred infected; and that is a conservative estimate.
“It wouldn’t bother me so much if they weren’t right between us and our planes. We couldn’t get out of here if we wanted to sir.”
A short pause followed his words.
“Well you boys are just going to have to figure something out. Administering this aerosol version of the cure is time sensitive, so it needs to be done within the next forty eight hours at the most. The plan is to start with Lagos. Find a way to meet us at the Air-force base in Ikeja.”
“LAGOS!!!! Are you out ___” He bit his lower lip drawing blood, barely able to contain the expletive that was determined to burst from his lips.
“Chose your next words carefully soldier __” Olatunji’s voice was quiet and deadly.
Diran swallowed and took a few deep breaths to calm himself. “Sir __ am sorry if what I had been about to say was insulting __ I was just shocked __ Lagos is a dead-zone. My more spiritual friends would call it a lost cause.
“Not only is it swarming with infected (Five million strong) if the last news report we got can be believed; but the air is un-breathable. Not to mention the mainland is overrun with those things. The army wasn’t able to get through, how in God’s name are you going to get to the Ikeja air-force base?”
“Simple! By helicopter __”
All the men present exchanged puzzled looks. “But if you have a helicopter why don’t you simply administer the cure yourselves?”
“We can’t because the vaccine needs to be administered at a particular altitude, which I am afraid only a plane can attain. So are you done with all the questions? Or do you have some more to ask?”
Diran shook his head slowly, forgetting Olatunji could not see. “From your silence, am willing to assume you don’t __ so without wasting any more time __ do everything possible to rendezvous with us at the air force base. Is that understood?”
“Yes __” Diran said through gritted teeth. His men looked at him in stunned silence.
“Good! You have 36 hours. Over and out__” and the connection went dead. A cold silence filled the hall.
Holocaust Page 34
