by James Harden
The news van drove up alongside us and came to a stop as the driver wound down his window.
I could only see a driver and the cameraman sitting in the front passenger seat. But there could’ve been more in the back.
"Good afternoon, soldiers," the driver said. "Do you mind if we ask you few questions?"
Franco was waving them back. "This is a restricted area. You can't be here."
"Where are you boys from? The states?"
"Are you deaf?" Franco said. "This is a restricted area. You need to leave immediately."
The reporters didn’t understand the severity of the situation. They just kept asking questions.
"What’s going on in Woomera? Rumor has it that people are being kept inside their own homes against their will. And why is the U.S. military involved?"
"Look, we’ve been authorized to use deadly force in this area. You need to leave right now."
"Deadly force? What the hell for?"
They weren’t taking the hint.
Drake moved up to the van. "You guys ever heard of Guantanomo Bay? Camp X-ray? You know why they call it Camp X-ray? Coz no one knows what goes on there. You wanna get locked up? The military police are on their way here right now. And believe me, once they get here, they will lock you up. And all your expensive equipment, including that pretty looking satellite dish will become property of the United States Military. Please, gentlemen, get the hell out of there."
The reporters gave each other worried looks. I guess they were trying to figure out if Drake’s threat was serious or not. But in the end, they decided it wasn’t worth the risk. They apologized for the disturbance and drove off.
I guess at that point we were distracted, scared of the possibility of shooting more innocent people, scared and sick that we were all thinking like that. And because we were distracted, we didn't see it.
The thing.
It was infected.
Another reason we didn't see it; it was crawling on its belly.
Maybe it got out with the others. I don’t know.
But it managed to sneak up on us. It grabbed Franco by his leg and bit into his flesh. He jumped back, yelling in shock. At first I thought he'd been bitten by a snake.
But then I looked down and saw it.
Another old man. Well, half of an old man. He was missing his legs. His legs looked like they had been amputated some time ago. Maybe a war injury. Maybe diabetes. It was hard to tell because they were torn up and bleeding.
He must've crawled all the way from town.
His dressing gown was torn up. As was his belly and chest from crawling all this way over rock and gravel.
Before we could react, before we could put a gun to his head and put him out of his misery, he had already grabbed Franco by the leg and bit into his calf muscle.
And the old man did not let go.
Franco fell back screaming. He was trying to shake it off. But the man had locked his jaw around Franco’s leg and he wasn’t letting go.
Franco continued to scream and shout. "Get it off me!"
Drake grabbed the thing by its hair and put his sidearm up to its temple. He blew its brains out all over the desert.
Franco had gone into shock. He threw up. He was shaking and shivering. There was a huge bloody wound in his lower leg where the thing had bitten into him.
I called it in.
The containment crew chopper showed up five minutes later. A team of guys in yellow HAZMAT suits piled out. Two of them strapped Franco to a stretcher and got him into the chopper.
The rest got to work securing the area.
They located the three other bodies and threw them into a shallow ditch. They doused them in fuel and set them on fire.
They watched them burn for a few minutes before they got back in the chopper.
And just like that, they were gone.
As Franco was airlifted away I watched the helicopter until it disappeared over the horizon. It was headed somewhere towards the military testing site. Complete opposite direction to the hospital. Maybe there was another hospital. Maybe they wanted to keep him separate from the public and the soldiers because he had been bitten. I don't know.
Everything happened so damn fast. We didn’t get a chance to ask where they were taking him.
Way off in the distance, I could also see black smoke rising up into to sky. It looked like it was coming from the Unofficial Immigration Center.
I looked to the east. There was nothing but miles and miles of flat, desolate land. For a fleeting moment I thought about running away, off into the desert.
Walking away from all this madness.
But then Drake said, "Come on. We still got a job to do. Stay frosty."
He patted me on the shoulder and went off to find a spot to watch for anyone else trying to escape the quarantine.
He was putting on a brave face but I knew he was just as worried.
Gordon
It had been a long day.
Franco’s injury and his immediate evacuation had left me shaken up. And I couldn’t get the image of those old people sprinting across the desert out of my head.
A cold shiver ran down my spine whenever I thought about it.
And just how the hell did they break out? How were they running barefoot through the desert?
It didn’t make sense.
I needed to talk this over with Gordon. I had to go and see him.
I asked Drake if he wanted to come to the hospital but he said he was going to grab a shower and get some food because he was starving. I can’t blame him. We’d been out in the sun all day. We hadn’t had much to eat. Normally I’d be starving as well but after what had happened, I’d completely lost my appetite.
I probably should’ve forced myself to have something. I should’ve at least showered. It had been such a long couple of days. But everything was a mess. And I needed to see Gordon. He was a level headed guy. I needed to hear him speak. I needed him to tell me it was going to be all right.
I finally found him in an isolated wing of the small hospital of Woomera. It took me awhile though because there were barely any nurses. Looked like they were understaffed. The nurse who did point me in the right direction was extremely stressed out.
I walked into Gordon’s room. He was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed. His head was bandaged. It sort of looked like his face was drooping on the left side. His head had been shaved. A long line of stitches ran down the side of his scalp. There may have been more but I couldn’t see under the bandage.
And for some weird reason, his hands and feet were bound to the rail guards of the hospital bed.
Despite all that he seemed to be in good spirits.
When he heard me enter the room he opened his eyes and smiled. "Got the afternoon off?" he asked.
"Yeah. We've been out on patrol all over the place."
"Jeez. They’re working you to the bone. What's the deal?"
"I don’t know, man. It’s getting pretty crazy. We’ve been supervising the testing procedures for the town and the immigration centers."
"Centers?"
"Yeah, there’s a secondary immigration center. It’s located out in the military testing zone. It's pretty messed up. It’s basically a slum out in the middle of nowhere."
"Oh wait. Yeah I heard about that," Gordon said. "I had a roommate in here yesterday. He wouldn’t tell me his rank, but I’m guessing he was pretty high up because he seemed to know a lot of stuff. He probably should’ve kept his mouth shut but he was well and truly doped up on pain meds."
"What did he tell you?"
"Apparently they’re on the verge of rioting at the immigration center."
"Which one?"
"Both of them."
"I can’t say that surprises me."
"Why not? What the hell is going on out there? I’ve been hearing a lot of gunfire."
"They’ve been testing the town’s people. And the refugees."
"Testing?"
&n
bsp; "Yeah. For the virus. If anyone tests positive, they get taken away. No questions asked. No explanation."
"I guess people are starting to get pissed off."
"Yeah I’d say so."
Gordon pushed button on a control panel that was attached to a drip.
"What’s that?"
"PCA."
"What?"
"Pain killers. It’s morphine."
"Oh. So what the hell did they do to you? Was cutting your head open like that really necessary?"
"Yeah. Apparently my head injury was worse than I thought. They had to cut me open to relieve the pressure. If my brain continued to swell, I would’ve died. Brain basically would’ve been pushed out the base of my skull."
"Damn. I didn’t know. I would’ve been here sooner. I…"
"Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. So what else has been going on out there?"
I was going to tell him about the fire, the massacre at the unofficial immigration center. And about Franco and how he may very well be infected. And about the rabid old people who very nearly ran us down. But I held my tongue. I didn’t want to freak him out or upset him unnecessarily.
He needed to focus on getting better.
"Not much," I lied. "Since you’ve been in hospital it’s been a whole lot less interesting."
"Yeah? Why am I not buying that?"
"Look, you just concentrate on getting better. You don’t want to be in here forever. You’ll get hooked on that stuff."
Gordon closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
"Kenji, listen to me. You gotta be careful. I know it’s getting worse. I know. The guy in here yesterday, the one doped up on pain meds. He told me some stuff."
"What do you mean?"
"If they can’t keep this thing under control they’re gonna order in air strikes."
"Air strikes? What are you saying?"
"I’m saying, if the infection gets beyond their control, they’re going to level this town. They’re going to wipe it from the face of the planet. They’ll use nukes if they have to."
"You’re kidding."
"I wish I was. First they’ll use napalm. Anything that doesn’t get blown up will burn to the ground. In World War Two the allied forces fire bombed the major German cities in their counter strikes. They created firestorms that would last for days. Burn the cities down. Buildings, houses, bomb shelters. Everything. In Vietnam, they used napalm to burn the jungle down. Now they’ll use it here. They need to make sure the infected burn. They need to make sure the virus doesn’t get out. If they can’t stop it with fire. They’ll nuke the place. Vaporize every last one of them."
I was speechless. Dumbfounded. Imagining in my mind’s eye a huge crater in place of this town.
"Nuke the town?" I asked. "They’ll never get away with it."
"The quarantine," Gordon answered.
"What?"
"The quarantine. They’re about to enforce a nationwide quarantine. No one gets in. No one gets out. They’re shutting down the phone networks, internet, everything. They’re going to stop the flow of information to the outside world. Believe me; they’ll get away with it."
I was shaking my head.
"Woomera is just the beginning," Gordon continued. "They’ve tested nukes out there before, out in testing site. The damage from fallout will be minimal. They figure this is an easier option. Sacrifice a few to save the many."
"Is it that bad?"
He nodded. "It’s a last resort but once they make the call, they won’t hesitate."
Gordon then closed his eyes again and took a few more deep breaths. "Damn, this morphine is stronger than I thought."
"Maybe you should just take it easy."
Gordon started to drift off to sleep. "You know wars, battles, fighting," he mumbled. "You used to fight the enemy face to face. But it changes. Jungle warfare. Desert warfare. Urban warfare. It’s constantly changing. You prepare for the last war you fought and then the next battle comes along and the rules change. The enemy gets smarter. They evolve. But what if the enemy is within? What if the rules change so much, to a point… where..."
He started to slur his speech. It was taking him considerable effort to talk.
"Gordon, are you all right?"
"This virus makes an enemy out of everyone. If it gets out of control there will be no stopping it. Command knows this. The people in charge, the people responsible know this. They are going to do everything in their power to stop it."
Gordon then passed out and I left the hospital even more worried than when I arrived.
To Hell and back.
I walked out of the hospital feeling like I’d been kicked in the guts. I went to Gordon for reassurance but instead I was even more one edge than I was before.
Would they really order in airstrikes? Would they really nuke the place?
There’s no way, right?
And what the hell did he mean by ‘people in charge’? If the military weren’t in charge then who the hell was?
I got back to the barracks, looking forward to a hot shower and some hot food. But as soon as I’d finished writing in my journal Drake and I were pulled aside. Initially I thought we were going to be reprimanded for the incidents at the outer-perimeter. For our hesitation the day before, for almost disobeying a direct order.
For Franco.
But instead we had been chosen for another operation.
A chopper had crashed in the middle of the unofficial immigration center. Right in the middle of the slum. The pilot and co-pilot had survived the crash. But they had suffered some serious injuries and they were possibly surrounded.
"Surrounded by who?" I asked.
"We can’t confirm but it’s possible, actually it’s more than likely there are infected people in that section," the commanding officer said. "And the refugees are now starting to riot. They are getting hostile. We fear they may attempt to take the pilots as hostage and start making demands for their lives."
I shook my head. The refugees were getting desperate. Violent. I can’t say I blame them. People will only be oppressed for so long until they fight back. No matter what the situation is.
Fortunately for us the riots had broken out on the opposite side of the slum to where the chopper had crashed.
This gave us some time.
But if the riots moved the pilots would be in big trouble.
We needed to provide protection for the pilots until the medical chopper arrived. We would act as a deterrent in case anyone got too close or got any wild ideas. I can’t say that I was thrilled about the assignment. It would’ve been nice to have had more support. But that wasn’t possible.
And we couldn’t pick them up in any land based vehicles because the area where they had crashed was inaccessible to cars. The laneways and walkways between the shanties were too narrow for a car, let alone a Humvee to pass through in that area.
"Why can’t we move them to a suitable location, get them into an ambulance and get them out?" I asked.
"No. We can’t move the co-pilot. He has a suspected spinal injury. You have to wait there for the medivac."
And that was it. We couldn’t get them out in a chopper at the moment and we couldn’t drive in there and get them out. We were it. The last hope.
The only hope.
We had to wait it out with them until the medical chopper was available.
I couldn’t believe it. I initially thought we had sent way too many soldiers down here. But now we had no one left. We were stretched to capacity.
I wondered what the hell was going on out in the 50,000 square miles of the military testing site. What the hell were they doing out there? Were there more immigration centers? Were there more towns under quarantine?
I suddenly wanted reinforcements.
We were driven into the slum as far as we could go, until the laneways became too narrow for the Humvee to drive through. It took us about ten minutes to reach this point. Again, the size of the shanty town took
my breath away. It was an endless sprawl of shacks, and makeshift huts. In the far north-west corner of the slum we could see black smoke rising into the sky.
That was where the riots had broken out.
The Humvee pulled up in one of the wider laneways. "Last stop," the driver said. "Good luck."
We would have to walk the rest of the way.
Amazingly, there didn’t seem to be many people in this area. Maybe they were all over at the riots. Maybe they were all hiding indoors. Too scared to come out.
We were a few ‘streets’ away from where the chopper had gone down. The driver of the Humvee performed an awkward U-turn and sped away. We were on our own now until the medical chopper arrived. Hopefully that wouldn’t be too long.
We set off at a jog and made our way as quickly as possible through the slum.
Drake pointed down a small side street. "Should be down here."
We moved down the side street, carefully checking around each corner and through each flimsy doorway.
No people. No one at all.
We came out into another main street. I guess it was more of a walkway really. The chopper was a mangled wreck. It was lying on its side, the rotor blades crumpled up. It had crushed a few of the shacks in the area as well.
We found the pilots inside. The head pilot had a compound fracture in his leg. The co-pilot was lying on his back in the cabin area. He was unconscious.
There was another person as well. A refugee. He was lying across the front windshield of the cockpit. He had a giant hole in his chest. And his head.
"Thank God you guys made it," the pilot said. "He’s in bad shape," he said motioning with his head towards the co-pilot.
"What the hell happened here?" Drake asked.
"Engine failure. We came down hard. Luckily the area seems to be deserted. Otherwise this could’ve been a lot worse."
"Who the hell is that?" I asked referring to the guy sprawled across the cockpit windshield.
"Don’t know. He tried to attack us. He charged us. He was screaming. Tried to break through the windshield. I had to take him out."
The guy's face was frozen in a look of pain and anguish. His mouth was open, like he was killed mid-scream. His teeth were exposed. There was a bullet hole in his chest and another one just above his right eyebrow. It was so small you could barely see the entry point. The exit wound on the other hand was a different matter entirely. It was the size of a man’s fist. Must’ve been shot with a hollow point, I thought.
