The dog stopped and stood there, looking at them for a few seconds, then barked, ran a few yards, then turned and looked back. Trotting back to the edge of the fence, the dog repeated the process once more.
“Follow it.” Nicholson concluded.
“Yep,” Zhang replied, nodding. “Okay, girl, lead the way!”
The dog raced along the fenceline, not bothering to see if the Humvee was keeping up.
Reed’s eyes opened slowly at the sound of an approaching vehicle. ‘Shit,’ he thought, forcing himself to sit up. ‘Was more trouble coming?’
Turning to where McGhee’s body laid, he reached out and grabbed the man’s uniform, then used the leverage to pull himself forward so that he could reach for the gun in the man’s belt.
“Relax,” Serrano said. “That’s a Humvee.”
“You sure?”
He scoffed lightly. “Yeah, I’m very fucking sure.”
With his arm still extended, Reed reached instead for the man’s canteen. Grabbing it, he unscrewed the cap and poured some into his mouth. Scooting back over to Serrano, he held the man’s head up and poured several small sips into his mouth.
“Delicious, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I could definitely use something stronger.”
“Me, too.”
Seconds later Steight leapt up into the aircraft, her tail wagging. She rushed to Reed and began licking his face.
The sound of the Humvee’s engine grew louder and louder until it was right outside the aircraft before it cut out with the finality of being turned off. Reed heard the sound of doors slamming, followed by a man’s voice.
“Hello? This is Sergeant Nicholson! My squad and I are here to help!”
Reed raised his voice, “In here, Sergeant.”
Four Army soldiers climbed into the aircraft, the leader of them one that Reed could only describe as a thick bodied, corn-fed country boy.
“Shit…” he muttered as he took in the sight of the plane’s interior, including the injured and dead. His eyes found Reed’s then drifted down to Reed’s rank insignia. “Sir, what’s the situation? My team can help, but I don’t want to injure anyone further.”
“Understand, Sergeant,” Reed began, before giving the man the details on the conditions of everyone. “I don’t know about Major Quinn or Lieutenant Knight, though,” he finished.
Turning to the Asian woman next to him, Nicholson said, “Zhang, check it out. If you need help, let us know.”
Nodding the woman climbed over the wreckage and into the cockpit. A few seconds later, her face reappeared above the twisted metal that had been the support area. “Pilot’s alive, but looking bad,” she said.
Thinking about Lieutenant Knight, who’d never co-piloted a C-17 prior to the mission, Reed asked, “What about the Copilot?”
Zhang’s eyes met his. “Sorry, sir.”
Realizing they wouldn’t be able to fit all of the injured inside the Humvee, Nicholson sent Rodriguez out to the vehicle to call for assistance.
Turning back to Reed, he nodded reassuringly.
“Don’t worry, Doc. We’re gonna get you back to safety.”
The fact that he used Skee’s last words was not lost on Reed, who lowered his head and allowed his emotions to take over.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
East Palo Alto, California
“That should do it,” Philip said, dusting off his hands as he set the tire iron aside.
Turning the handle on the heavy jack, Aaron lowered the armored truck until the tire once again supported the load. Though the tire was a different style - an off road one they’d removed from a nearby truck - it was the same size as the flattened one they’d removed.
“Alright,” Aaron said, smiling at the others as he gestured towards the open back door. “All aboard for the ride to the Protective Zone.”
He moved away to assist Logan as Phillip and Jennifer helped their grandfather into the back of the truck, then stepped aside as Serafina and the girls helped Daniel in.
“I feel like I’m being loaded into the back of a paddywagon,” Daniel remarked, grinning slightly.
“What’s a paddywagon?” Brenna asked.
“That’s a really old name for a police van,” Serafina answered.
“God, you’re old, Dad,” Ashley added, shaking her head.
“Hey, I resemble that remark!” the man replied, scooting back and out of the way to make room for Logan, who Aaron was helping with the aid of Isabella.
The girl wasn’t really supporting his weight as much as she was simply staying close to him. Her arm remained wrapped around his waist as he rested his arm on her shoulders. Since the incident near the bridge, she’d barely left his side, save for the moment when she’d rushed to help Daniel.
Helping the two of them into the back, Aaron stepped back and waited as Jennifer slipped past the pair and stepped down from the truck, accepting his hand for assistance. Aaron waited, looking into the back at Phillip.
His friend’s eyes met his. “Hey man, you got this,” he said, tossing the keys to Aaron. “I’ll hang in the back with my grandpa and the others.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” he replied, before looking at his sister. “You mind reading the map for him?”
The woman plucked the keys from Aaron’s hand. “Nah,” she answered, smiling slyly. “I’ve been wanting my turn behind the wheel. Besides, I heard this guy’s good at reading the map.”
The group had been on the road for thirty-five minutes, slowly working their way along, or parallel to, the 101 highway, when The sound of multiple heavy vehicles rumbling along the road filled the afternoon air.
“The heck is that?” Aaron asked, looking around from his spot in the passenger seat.
Jennifer took her foot off the gas, allowing the vehicle to slow to crawl as she looked around for the source of the noise. “Damned if I know,” she replied.
Seconds later, a Humvee lurched onto the highway from the offramp to their right. A heavy duty personnel carrier followed close behind.
“Nice,” Aaron said, nodding. “Looks like we’re headed in the right direction.”
“Weird,” the medic attending Serrano said, looking out the back of the personnel carrier.
“What’s that?” the man across from him asked as he continued to hold the IV bag in place over their patient’s arm.
“Someone’s driving a damn armored truck to the P.Z.”
Serrano sat up instantly, disregarding their concerns as he looked through the opening at the back of the vehicle.
“Stop the truck,” he ordered.
“What?” The first man asked, looking at him skeptically.
Serrano’s hand shot out with near inhuman speed, grabbing the front of the man’s uniform. He pulled him closer.
“Stop the damn truck.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
San Francisco Protective Zone, California
THREE DAYS LATER
“Boom. Five hundred,” Daniel said, smiling. Reaching across the table, he gave Serafina a high five.
“Lucky son of a bitch,” Phillip replied, shaking his head.
“You’re just mad because that’s three in a row,” Serafina responded, grinning.
Aaron leaned back in his chair and tilted his chin up so that he could stare at the ceiling. The woman was right. He was mad that they’d lost three games in a row.
“You know what your mistake was, right?” Richard asked, moving gingerly as he walked over to where they sat around the table in the middle of their common area.
“What’s that, grandpa? Phillip asked, looking up at him.
“You’re playing Spades against a Sailor. That’s all they do at sea,” he said, looking at Daniel and winking. The group burst into laughter at the man’s comment, each of them happy and relaxed in the safety of their environment.
Daniel shook his head in response, gathering the cards up and arranging them so that he could shuffle them once m
ore. Their turn was over, but it had always been his habit to shuffle the cards before handing them over.
Looking around the common area, he took in the sights of his family’s new found friends. Sarah and Jennifer were at the other table, working through math problems with Sarah’s children, while the man who went by the nickname ‘Chili’ sat nearby, sharpening his knife for the hundredth time, his eyes occasionally darting towards the blonde woman. Though the two had spent a lot of time together over the last few days, talking together as they walked through the outside courtyard or relaxed in the common area, Daniel sensed there was some kind of barrier between the two of them, something that was preventing one of them from allowing things to go further. Whether it was his issue or hers, it seemed almost like an impenetrable wall that allowed friendship and little else through.
Over in the corner of the room, Paul rose from the floor, where he’d been doing pushups and situps. The young man was determined to get stronger, and the newfound confidence he’d gained provided the belief in himself as well as the motivation needed for him to put in the work needed to make it happen. Grabbing the tattered paperback he was reading between sets, The Stand by Steven King, he sat back down in his chair and re-immersed himself in the massive novel.
Redirecting his gaze, Daniel found Logan and Isabella sitting near the window, talking quietly as they watched as birds visited the feeder they’d set up in the courtyard. It’d taken some cajoling, but eventually Sergeant Nicholson dropped off the feeder and a forty pound bag of birdseed for them.
‘Don’t tell anyone I did this,’ he’d said, smiling before disappearing through the building’s main entrance.
Setting the cards aside, Daniel studied the pair by the window. The two had formed an incredibly close bond during time they’d spent together, one that may have started to form back when the group had started their journey north. Where Isabella had previously stayed close to Brenna and Ashley, preferring their company, she’d changed. Now she found that comfort in Logan’s company, and for his part, the man seemed to be okay with it, which Daniel was happy to see. When he’d first met the man three weeks prior, the Army Combat Medic seemed broken; a shell of a man capable of everything except feeling anything. He’d lost his fiancee during the initial outbreak, then was taken hostage by the Sheriff and his men at the lodge in Big Bear. Like the others that the Sheriff had taken, he had been worked to the bone and fed only enough to keep him strong enough to perform the manual labor demanded of him. Through sheer luck, the man’s opportunity to fight back and earn his freedom had coincided with Daniel and the other’s rescue of Serafina and Isabella. Afterwards he’d agreed to come along for the trip north, saying that from San Francisco it was a short trip to his family’s ranch in Northern California, and that once they got the girl to San Francisco he’d be on his way.
Something told Daniel that things had changed. The man’s smile had returned, and with it some of the warmth and compassion that made people human.
“Hey Dad, is it our turn yet?”
Looking up at the sound of the voice, he saw Ashley and Brenna standing there, looking at him impatiently in the way teenage daughters do. Both girls’ hair had been washed, conditioned, and left untied. After a week with their hair in ponytails, they’d said it felt ‘liberating’ to wear their hair down again. Glancing around the room, Daniel realized all the women, including Sarah’s daughter Olivia, had their hair down.
“Dad?” It was Brenna this time.
“Okay, okay,” he said, rising from his chair slowly. His side and leg still ached, and the knife wound in his shoulder was far from fully healed. Deciding to mess with the Marines, he added, “this is getting a little too easy, anyway.”
“Just lucky, Sir,” Aaron said, shaking his head. No matter how many times Daniel told the young man to call him by his first name, the Marine continued to recognize his officer status, even though he’d retired from the Navy more than five years ago.
Serafina rose from her chair and joined him, watching his movements closely. When she’d seen the gunshot wounds, she’d been frightened at their severity. Luckily for all of them, Logan and Aaron had been able to clean the wound and stop the bleeding.
Moving to the table Chili occupied, Daniel asked, “Mind if we join you?”
“Not at all,” the man replied, looking up and giving them a smile.
“Need a different knife to sharpen?” Serafina asked, holding up her favorite blade.
He nodded. “Actually, yeah.”
She passed it to him before sitting down next to Daniel.
“Any update from Doctor Reed?” Daniel asked. The group hadn’t seen much of the tall, African American doctor over the last three days. Moving as quickly as his walking boot would let him, the man had left early each morning and returned late each night. He’d been spending the days passing information back to the doctors at Mount Weather (apparently the CDC had gone offline four days ago) as he worked in the meager lab that had been setup at his request. When he’d spoken to the group the night before, it was clear he wasn’t getting very far.
“I’m trying, but even though I can easily identify the antibodies in Isabella’s blood, I can’t figure out how to synthesize a vaccine from it, and explaining what I’m seeing over the phone is just not working,” he explained, shaking his head. With the Internet down globally, there was no way to share images, let alone video, with Doctors Yang and Bowman back in Virginia.
The only thing he had managed to do was to establish a baseline, an identification of the difference between Isabella’s blood and that of others, including that of each member in their group.
Realizing that the girl’s blood was, in fact, wholly resistant to the virus was amazing.
Finding out their blood wasn’t? Pretty damn scary.
One scratch, one bite, one splatter of blood could have effectively ended them.
Reed had explained to the group that he was going to continue working, and that he’d keep going as long as he could, but if it came to a point where he wasn’t making progress anymore, he and the other officers would have to confer with the President and the rest of what remained of the country’s leadership and determine their next steps.
That meeting had taken place this morning.
“I’ll know when you do, boss,” Chili replied, smiling as he began to sharpen Serafina’s knife.
“See the way he does that, honey?” Serafina asked, chiding him.
Daniel shrugged. “I’m injured.”
“Son of a - ”
The door to the common room opened. The massive form or General Armstead entered the room, followed by Doctor Reed, Major Kincaid, and a few enlisted soldiers.
“Attention on deck!” Phillip and Aaron yelled simultaneously as they leapt to their feet, sending their chairs flying backwards.
Serrano followed suit, moving with a quickness that shouldn’t have been possible given his injuries.
Daniel was still in the process of rising from his chair when the General extended his arm.
“Please. At ease everyone.”
Coming to a stop in the center of the room, he gazed at the group for a moment before speaking. When he did, his deep voice was confident and resolute.
“Progress here has come to a stop. Doctor Reed has done an amazing job in his research and analysis, but we simply don’t have the equipment here to accomplish what needs to be done.”
Turning towards Reed for a moment, he continued. “Now I know Doctor Reed here would continue to work day and night if I let him, spending every waking hour beating himself up as he tried to solve this challenge, but as the man in charge, I can’t let him do that.”
Looking Reed in the eye, he said, “Jonathan, you’re brilliant, okay? But you need help to solve this, and that help isn’t here.”
“I know, Sir,” Reed replied, nodding.
The General turned back to the group. “Time is of the essence. Our fellow citizens are dying out there, and every delay is
costing more lives. We need to take action.”
Serrano cocked his head to the side. “You want us to take Isabella to Mount Weather, don’t you, Sir?”
Armstead smiled but didn’t reply. Instead he walked over to where Isabella sat with Logan. Placing his hand on the back of one of the charis at the table, he looked down at the girl and softly asked, “Can I sit here?”
Looking up at the big man, the young girl’s eyes were saucer-like as she nodded.
Armstead pulled the chair out and lowered himself into it, his massive form stressing the chair’s frame.
“The first thing I’d like to say is ‘thank you,’” he began, looking into the girl’s eyes. “You’ve given us the one thing that we desperately needed. Do you know what that is?”
Isabella slowly shook her head back and forth, her eyes never leaving the man’s.
“You gave us hope, Isabella,” he said. He reached out and gently touched the girl’s arm. “Thank you for that.” Nodding, he went on. “I know all of this has been very hard for you, and I think you’re amazing. Everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve done, it’s incredible. Heck, half the soldiers I’ve served with would have given up a long time ago. Not you, though.”
The girl still stared at him, barely blinking.
“I need to ask you something, Isabella.”
The girl’s eyes darted away. “Izzie,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
The General smiled. “Sorry. Izzie. I like that nickname.”
“It’s what my friends call me,” she explained, looking at Logan, then across the room to where Ashley and Brenna sat.
“Okay, Izzie, well, I need to ask you something.”
“Okay…”
“I need for you to go to Virginia with some of my soldiers.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s pretty far,” he replied, nodding again. “It’s on the other side of the country.”
Surviving Rage | Book 4 Page 38
