“We are,” Tanya said, “and we’d have it here if not for your drones on the coast. We almost got killed trying to get to our boats.”
“They’re not my drones,” he said. “There’s a kill zone being set up along the coast. It’s a huge operation. We can’t let the virus leave our shores so we are quarantining the country. As well as the drones, there will be a military presence on the ground eventually. We’ve already mobilized ground troops to most ports and even some of the larger marinas.”
“Well, if you want the vaccine, you need to let us pass through the zone so that we can get to our boats,” Tanya said.
The brigadier looked at her with an amused twinkle in his eyes. “Do I, indeed? And why should I do that? Marilyn MacDonald might think it’s a good idea to employ civilians in military operations, but I don’t agree. As far as I’m concerned, you should be in the tents with the other civvies. Leave the soldiering to properly trained soldiers.”
“Sir,” Price said, stepping forward, “from what Marilyn MacDonald said, this lot have…”
“Yes, yes, I know what they’ve done.” The brigadier stood up. “I’ve read the report.” He walked around the desk to face us, looking at each of us in turn. “According to MacDonald, you people are the dog’s bollocks when it comes to going up against zombies.” He looked us up and down. “Although I must say I expected something more than what I see in front of me. You all look too casual, too untidy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen combat uniforms worn quite so sloppily.”
“We’re not military personnel,” I reminded him.
“No, you’re not,” he said, pushing his face close to mine. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how good MacDonald says you are, I’m in charge of Operation Wildfire and I’d rather work with military personnel than a rag-tag bunch of heroes.”
“We don’t have to be here,” Tanya said defiantly. “We volunteered for this.”
As she said it, I could feel my chance to look at the Survivor Board slipping away. If we pissed this man off too much, he would throw us out, or worse, lock us up in the camp.
He stared at Tanya for a moment before turning to Price. “Have them escorted to the cookhouse and get a meal inside them while we discuss what to do.”
“Sir.” Price opened the door and summoned two of his men, giving them the order to take us to the cookhouse.
As we moved to the door, the brigadier said to Tanya, “Miss Lee, whatever happens to you and your friends, you only have yourselves to blame. You want to play at being soldiers but you didn’t learn the first rule of the military.”
Tanya turned to face him. “Oh? What’s that?”
He grinned and said, “Never volunteer for anything.”
24
We were escorted to the cookhouse, which was like a cafeteria inside with rows of tables and a serving area where servers were dishing out food to soldiers. The smell of food in the air made my mouth water.
Our escorts stood by the exit, chatting with each other. I had the feeling we weren’t allowed to leave here until either the brigadier or Price said so. Sam was brought in through the door and came over to our table.
“What did the medic say?” Tanya asked him.
“Clean bill of health, man.”
“So the vaccine does work,” I said. “I had my doubts.”
“Hey, I never doubted it for a second.” He grabbed a tray and got into the line for food. “I never felt like I was being zombified.”
“And how would you know what that feels like?” Lucy asked him.
He shrugged. “I’d just know. All I felt was like I had the flu for an hour and then it passed.”
We got our food, which consisted of roast beef, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and gravy, and found a table. As we ate, we told Sam about our encounter with Brigadier Gordon and how he and Price were deciding our future.
“Fuck ‘em,” Sam said. “If they don’t want to let us go and get the vaccine, then we’re out of here. I’m starting to think that volunteering to be a part of this operation was a mistake. You try to help some people and they have their heads so far up their own asses, they can’t see that you’re on their side.”
I finished my meal and put the knife and fork down on the plate. “Don’t worry, they know how valuable the new vaccine is. They’ll let us go and fetch it.”
Sam pointed his fork at Lucy and me. “Have you two seen the survivor database yet?”
We shook our heads.
“Make sure you get a look at it,” he said. “If we’re going to get thrown out of here, we might as well gain something from this stupid trip.”
“They’re not going to throw us out,” Tanya assured him. “The brigadier is against letting us complete the mission but Price is on our side.”
“Yeah, but the brigadier outranks Price,” Lucy said.
Tanya shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
Price appeared at the door and beckoned us to follow him. He led us back to the brigadier’s office.
The brigadier was sitting behind the desk again, a number of typed papers spread out in front of him. I wondered if they were the reports on us that he’d received from Marilyn MacDonald.
“Come in, come in,” he said as we entered. His tone seemed lighter, more friendly. Maybe Price had convinced him that we were the right people for the job or maybe the reports had swayed the argument in our favor. Either way, I was sure we were part of Operation Wildfire again.
He leaned back in his chair. “Captain Price has put forward a strong case for allowing you to continue working on this operation. His argument and Marilyn MacDonald’s reports have convinced me that putting people like you into a camp would be a waste of resources. You might not be trained but you have experience.” He flicked through the pages on the desk. “A lot of it, apparently.”
Looking back up at us, he said, “So tomorrow, you will return to your boats to get the vaccine.”
“And we won’t get shot at?” Tanya asked.
“Of course you won’t. We have signal emitters that we put into our vehicles. The signal tells the drones that the vehicle is friendly. The emitters are portable; we’ll put one in the Mastiff.”
Sam grinned. He had probably thought the brigadier was going to confiscate Big Betty.
“You can wipe that smile off your face,” the brigadier told Sam. “I may have let you back into the operation but I cannot sanction letting civilians take charge of military technology. Two of our men will be going with you, acting as crew. They will be the driver and the gunner. You four are simply passengers. Is that understood?”
I nodded. Sam’s face had fallen but he murmured a low, “Yeah.”
The brigadier held out his hand. “Keys, please.”
Sam reluctantly handed them over.
“Once you reach your boats, you will load the vaccine into the Mastiff,” the brigadier said. “It’s simple, really. Everyone clear on all that?”
We nodded. I didn’t like the idea of having to travel with two soldiers; it felt like we weren’t trusted to operate on our own, despite the fact that we had come this far without any help.
“Before we go,” I said, “I’d like to see the survivor database.”
“So would I,” Lucy added.
The brigadier hesitated for a moment, thinking. He pushed a sheet of paper and a pen across the desk to us. “Write the names of the people you want to find on there. I’ll have someone look them up.”
“And you’ll tell us the results before we leave tomorrow?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you the results when you deliver the vaccine,” he said.
I clenched my fists. Why was it that every time I did something for the military, they had some sort of hold over me?
I wrote Joe’s name, and the names of my parents on the paper. Lucy added the names of her parents and we turned to leave.
“Just one more thing,” the brigadier said.
We turned to
face him.
“Good luck,” he said.
25
We spent the night in a hut that Price gave us the key to. The furnishings inside were nothing more than a row of six beds but that was enough. After spending the previous night sleeping in the back of the Mastiff, the basic beds in the hut felt luxuriously comfortable.
I was awoken the next morning by the general hubbub of the camp. Sam, Tanya, and Lucy were already awake.
“Something’s happening out there, man,” Sam said.
The morning was wet, cold, and rainy as we stepped out of the hut. A group of soldiers stood by a section of the perimeter fence that backed onto the woods. They seemed to be having a heated discussion.
Price appeared, marching toward the assembly.
“What’s happened?” I asked Price as he passed us.
“Another attack,” he said, sighing. “It happens every bloody night.”
We followed them to the fence. When I saw what was there, I was glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast.
Four corpses hung from the wire fence. Their faces were wide-eyed, their mouths open, as if they were silently screaming. A trail of blood and gore stained the fence behind each man as it dripped from the tear in their bodies where their spines had once been.
Price turned to a soldier who was holding a clipboard. “Is anyone missing?”
“Yes, Sir,” the soldier replied. “Seven men went missing last night.”
Price shook his head in disgust. “Why is it doing this?” he murmured. Then he said, “Get those bodies down now,” and turned on his heels before marching back toward the huts.
As he passed us, he said, “Come with me.”
We followed him to a hut with his name on the door: Captain Colin price. Inside, the office was identical to the brigadier’s except the desk wasn’t as large. Price seemed to deflate as soon as he entered and was out of sight of his men. His shoulders dropped and a weakness seemed to enter his eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “It’s like this every night. Some of our soldiers are killed while others go missing. It never attacks the civilian camp, only this compound.”
“By ‘it’, I think you mean Jax,” Tanya said.
“Yes, Jax. Your friend. Well, ex-friend, I suppose. I’m sure she wouldn’t think twice before killing all of you now that she’s become this…”—he consulted a typed report on his desk—“…Type 1. Or whatever the hell those eggheads at Apocalypse Island call it.”
“Type 1,” I said. “There are only two of them in existence, Jax and Vess. Vess is patient zero.”
“You faced Vess,” Price said. “So tell me, how do we defeat Jax? We can’t have good soldiers being torn to pieces or going missing every bloody night.”
“We faced him but we didn’t defeat him,” I said. “When we left Site Alpha Two, Vess was still in the building and very much alive as far as I know. The soldiers there were fighting him.”
He waved his hands dismissively. “No, that all went tits up. After a wave of zombies came out of the building, the soldiers sealed the place, deciding it was better to lock Vess up in there than go in and try to kill him. Too dangerous.”
Tanya stepped in. “Either way, we had no idea how to deal with Vess then and we don’t know how to stop Jax now.”
“But there is one thing we can warn you about,” I said. “The Type 1’s are just as intelligent as they were before they became infected. They don’t become mindless killing machines like the zombies, or rage-driven murderers like the hybrids. They can calculate and plan. So be careful.”
“Right,” he said sarcastically. “Great advice. ‘Be careful’. I’m sure that’s going to save my men from being torn apart by that monster.” He marched to the door, straightening his posture before opening it. “Come on, it’s time for you to go and collect that vaccine.”
We followed him past the huts to the area where the Mastiff was parked. Two soldiers stood by the open doors of the vehicle. On the ground between them was a green-colored metal box about the size of a car battery with a black metal handle. One of the soldiers was blonde and looked like he might be nineteen years old. He was introduced to us as Thornley, the gunner.
The other soldier was black, in his thirties, and named Cooper. He was the driver.
“And this is a Magpie,” Price said, indicating the metal box on the ground. “It emits a signal that tells any drones overhead that your vehicle is friendly. The old version used to be fixed to our vehicles. Now, it’s portable because some of our chaps in the Middle East had to switch to local vehicles and the results weren’t pleasant when the drone operators mistook them for the enemy. So any vehicle you carry the Magpie in will be friendly as far as the drones are concerned.”
He patted the side of the Mastiff. “She’s all fuelled up and her ammo has been replenished. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting to the coast but I’ve arranged a convoy to escort you as far as Carlisle. After that, you’re on your own. Any questions?”
We didn’t have any, so he said, “Good luck,” and turned back to the huts.
“Who’s riding up front with me?” Cooper asked as he climbed up into the driver’s seat.
We all looked at Sam, assuming that if he wasn’t allowed to drive, at least sitting in the front passenger seat would be the next best thing.
But he had already climbed in through the rear door, his face downcast.
“I think he’s sulking,” Tanya whispered to Lucy and me.
“I heard that,” Sam said from inside the Mastiff.
Tanya rolled her eyes. “I’ll ride up front if Mr. Sulky Pants doesn’t want to.”
“I heard that too,” Sam said.
“You were supposed to,” she said lightly as she went to the front of the vehicle and climbed up into the passenger seat.
Lucy and I joined Sam in the back, sitting across from him.
Thornley climbed in and placed the Magpie up near the front storage compartment. Then he opened the top hatch, donned a headset and a helmet, and took his place on the raised gunner’s platform.
“Is everyone strapped in?” Cooper asked, starting the engine and putting on his own headset so that he could communicate with Thornley.
Lucy and I muttered an affirmative. Sam remained silent.
As we reversed out of the parking space, Sam asked Cooper, “Can we at least put the SDU screens on, man?”
“No need,” Cooper answered. “Thornley and I are the crew. Leave the driving and shooting to us. You just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
We drove out of the camp gate.
Sam looked at Lucy and me and said, “Well, this sucks.”
26
When we reached the motorway, the rain became heavier. I wondered how Thornley was enjoying it with his head sticking out through the roof hatch. The rain must be pinging off his helmet and driving him crazy.
Cooper took us south to a slip road, took it, and crossed over a bridge so that we could take the road that led to the northbound lanes. When we were back on the motorway heading north, I saw two of the Jeeps that made up our escort driving in front of us.
Sam folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling, whistling a nondescript tune. He looked like he was waiting at a doctor’s office, wishing he were anywhere else but where he was right now. After ten minutes of whistling and looking as if he might actually die of boredom, he turned to Cooper and said, “Hey, man, can we have the radio on?”
Without speaking, Cooper turned on the radio.
Sam looked at me and said, “This guy’s a barrel of laughs.”
The Sasha Green Morning Show was on and Sasha was playing mainly eighties and nineties hits. Sam fidgeted in his seat and looked so impatient that I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked Cooper, “Are we there yet?” despite the fact that we had only just begun the journey.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, letting the constant rumble of the Mastiff’s engine lull me into a relaxed drowsiness.
I must have dozed of
f because the next thing I knew, we were leaving the motorway and driving toward winding narrow side roads with low stone walls and fields on either side.
“Where are we?” I asked Lucy.
“We’re coming off the motorway so we can avoid that bridge where we were ambushed,” she said. I blinked the tiredness out of my eyes and stretched. The rain was still falling and I was sure that Thornley must be really pissed off by now.
“What about Carlisle? Did we go past it already?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “And it was boring. The rain is keeping all the zombies indoors.” His humor hadn’t improved any since I’d fallen asleep.
Cooper said, “Everyone hold on tight. We’ve got bandits on our tail.”
The top gun began firing. I hoped Thornley was as accurate with it as Tanya had been.
“How many of them are there?” I asked Cooper.
He shrugged. “Maybe six or seven cars. Don’t worry, they’re stuck behind us on these narrow roads. There’s not much they can do here.”
Thornley continued to fire. I had no idea if he was even hitting anything and it was annoying me to be sitting here helpless and kept in the dark about what was happening outside.
“Screw this,” I said, unfastening my harness.
Sam saw what I was doing and grinned. He unbuckled his own harness and grabbed an M16.
“Hey, hey,” Cooper shouted. “What are you doing back there? Sit down and put your harnesses back on.”
Ignoring him, I switched on the SDU screen so that it showed the view behind us.
The rear tires of the Mastiff were throwing up rainwater and dirt from the road. A line of cars was sticking close to our tail.
It didn’t look like Thornley had actually hit anything with the big gun. “What are you doing up there?” I shouted at him. “Firing warning shots?”
“Yes,” he shouted back. “I’m showing them that they should pull back because we have superior firepower.”
Wildfire- Destruction of the Dead Page 12
