Up From the Depths: Book 4 Movement to Contact

by J. R. Jackson

  Nothing. The only thing moving on the campus were shambling groups of infected.

  There was no one alive moving on the streets or in any of the buildings he scanned. It had been this way since the group had taken shelter in the abandoned factory. They had discussed at length why the infected seemed drawn to certain locations. No one had any solid ideas, just theories. They had seen infected trapped inside cars and buildings but after a while, they were only a few on the streets.

  Slowly turning in a circle as he looked at the other buildings, he caught movement on the roof of an apartment building, several blocks away. Adjusting the focus; he tried to see what it was.

  There were people on the roof, real people not infected. They appeared to be working on something. Some of the people were armed with rifles watching the streets below them.

  He tightened focus on the building. The work group was moving building materials and other items while the armed members were watching a dead city around them for signs of activity.

  Jimbo watched, shocked that there were others alive in what he had thought to be only a place inhabited by the dead. He ran back inside to tell the others the good news. Several times he came close to slipping and falling as in his excitement, he stumbled over concrete footings or metal frames in his haste to tell the group.

  Throwing open the door to the room, he half yelled,

  “There’s people! Outside! On the roof!”

  Everyone stopped and looked at him like he had grown a third eye, then the looks on their faces changed. Jimbo barely had time to get out of the way as they crowded past him and albeit stampeded up the roof stairs.

  ***

  The group gathered on the roof, looking around trying to find the building Morrison had indicated. Berg and Anna, the college age girl who hadn’t once spoken the entire time she had been with the survivors, stood off to one side. Anna held Berg’s arm tightly as she looked around with wide, frightened eyes. It was rare that she ever left the floor they were staying on. Robert Kennedy and his wife Martha were at the edge of the roof shading their eyes with their hands as they scanned the buildings. Only Melody was using the binoculars to look at the rooftops. Jimbo was at her side pointing to the apartment complex where he had seen movement.

  “I don’t see anything, bro,” she said handing the binoculars to Robert Kennedy. Kennedy looked at the building, intently focusing on the roof before moving to the floors beneath. He handed the binoculars off to Berg.

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t see anyone on that roof,” he said shaking his head slowly. “Are you sure it was that building?”

  “Yeah, it was that one right there,” Morrison said as he pointed to the apartment building. “They were just there. I swear, there were people on the roof moving around.”

  “There’s no one there now,” Kennedy said sympathetically placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder. Martha smiled at him from the doorway before she and her husband headed downstairs.

  Berg walked over to where Jimbo and Melody were standing, Anna never releasing her grip on his arm.

  “I didn’t see anything over there, man. Maybe they’re there and maybe they’re not,” he said shrugging his shoulders as he handed back the binoculars. He gave a little wave before leaving the roof. “You’ve been coming up here every day since we got to this place looking for other survivors. Maybe you saw what you wanted to see,” Berg said, shrugging his shoulders with a sympathetic look on his face.

  Jimbo turned and looked at his step-sister.

  “You believe me don’t you?” he asked.

  “I believe you saw something on that roof,” she replied pointing in that direction. “Whatever it was, it’s not there right now.” She looked in the direction of the other building then looked back at her brother.

  “Maybe they’ll come back some time later,” she suggested. Jimbo nodded glancing down at the binoculars he held.

  “Don’t stay up here too long. It’s get pretty hot up here,” Melody said before she turned and went downstairs. Jimbo realized that she had just suggested that he might have seen a heat mirage or been out in the sun too long and had a heat induced delusional episode. He looked at the roof he knew he had seen movement on. He knew there were people over there. He was sure of it. Just as he was sure that someone was going to come for them, to take them away from all this. He looped the strap for the optics over his neck then brought them back up to his eyes and began scanning the buildings again.

  ***

  Hours later, long after the sun had dropped below the horizon; Jimbo was still on the roof watching for a sign of life from the building that he was so sure survivors were in. His shirt was plastered to his chest, his hair equally to his head. His eyes were bloodshot from staring through the optics for so long, wishing to see what he had seen previously. It was the crunch of footsteps on the gravel roof that made him look towards the roof access door. Berg stood a few feet away looking out at the dark city. Jimbo returned to scanning the buildings hoping to catch a light in one of the windows that would signify someone else was alive.

  They stood in silence for several minutes.

  “You really saw people out there?” Berg finally asked.

  “Yeah, I did,” Jimbo replied.

  “Like right there? At that building right there?” Berg asked pointing at the edifice in question. Jimbo brought the binoculars from his eyes and looked at where the other boy was indicating.

  “That’s the one,” he assured Berg. The younger boy was silent for several more minutes.

  “Only one thing to do then, we’ll have to go over there and see if anyone’s home,” Berg said.

  Jimbo brought the binoculars away from his eyes and glanced at Berg. “That’s the only way to be sure,” Berg added.

  Jimbo couldn’t help but break into a grin. Berg matched him and the two boys laughed a little, something that they hadn’t done in a long time.

  “C’mon, let’s get inside. Melody has dinner ready. Spaghetti-O’s and beans. Again,” Berg said as he patted his stomach. “Yum-yum.”

  ***

  Over dinner, Jimbo and Berg discussed their plan to head out in the morning to investigate what Jimbo had seen.

  “Not sure I want you boys heading out there by yourselves,” Robert Kennedy stated. He and his wife had taken on the role of parent and guardian to the group. Robert had become the group trainer and father figure due to his age and earlier years spent in military service.

  “I don’t like it either,” Melody agreed voicing her opinion. “Just the two of you? Out there with those things wandering around?” She shook her head. “That’s not going to work.”

  “We haven’t seen any of those things for months,” Berg said soothingly. “For all we know, they’re dead in a building somewhere or they left.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Melody said defensively.

  “No, we don’t and staying inside isn’t going to let us know either,” Jimbo spoke up. The room was quiet as each of them thought about the potential problems of venturing outside.

  “We’ll reassess this issue tomorrow morning,” Kennedy stated effectively ending conversation on the topic.

  ***

  Chapter 12

  Dupont Federal Center, 60 miles South East of Idaho Falls

  Major Julio Quintana sat at his desk and stared at the folder that lay open on the blotter. Picking up the typed pages, he butted the ends together then carefully placed them back inside the folder closing the cover. He looked at it for several minutes then leaned back in his chair. Some group, unknown, had taken down one of his squads. The last page hinted that it might have been a group as small as two or maybe even one lone survivor that might have been a LaMOE or Last Man on Earth. He was certain it was a group, a large group that was very well armed. Unthinkable that one or two people could have taken out an entire squad of his elite IS troops. There was no doubt in his mind that it was some kind of paramilitary group. The possibility that is was a rogue US
military unit that had killed his men was remote. Most of the US military was in disarray since infection and had taken huge losses. The loss of Brandon was disappointing; he had been looking forward to breaking her down. She was either going to be his mistress or she was going to taste the sting of his whip. He felt himself grow hard as he thought of the sweet ecstasy of seeing Brandon hanging from the ceiling as he flailed her skin with his whip. A pity that she hadn’t come around to his way of thinking but there were plenty more like her in the facility. Quintana picked up the file, swiveled his chair and fed it into the shredder, watching intently as the report was destroyed.

  ***

  Idaho Falls

  Jimbo Morrison and Warren Bergeron readied the equipment they would be taking with them. Besides two of the M16A4s from their meager arms room, there wasn’t much else to take. Jimbo slid a pry bar inside his belt then stuffed a loaded magazine into each of the back pockets of his jeans. Berg had a duty belt adjusted to his slim waist with a M9 nestled in a UM84 holster. He would leave the second M16 with extra ammo with the group. Instead, he carried a piece of rebar that he had found shortly after they had arrived. Over the weeks, Berg had wrapped tape one end to act as a grip leaving the other end with its jagged point.

  “You boys look about ready,” Kennedy commented as he helped Jimbo adjust the sling for his rifle. “Remember what I said, you run into trouble of any kind out there, you head straight back.”

  “We know,” Jimbo responded as he removed the mag from his rifle, visually inspected the rounds then slapped it back place. “You ready?” he asked Berg who was checking his sidearm and counting the magazines he had.

  “I’m good,” the other boy answered. Kennedy walked with them down the stairs to the ground floor then outside to the fence. Using pliers, he bent the metal rings to allow the fence to be pulled back. Jimbo and Berg slipped through the gap, looked back once then jogged across the street as Kennedy bent the rings back into place.

  ***

  Dupont Federal Center

  60 Miles South East of Idaho Falls

  Inside the federal center, sirens, alarm claxons and flashing lights erupted on every level, echoing down every corridor and illuminating the normally semi-darkened hallways with strobes. General Spears was trying to restore order amid the chaos of light and sound. The entire operations room now bathed in combat red, with flashes of blue and orange as different alarm systems continued to announce their presence. Personnel running back and forth across the operations room added to the chaos. Panicked voices shouted out for assistance with others shouting orders.

  “Sir! Reactor at capacity! I can’t get it to shut off!”

  “SCRAM the reactor! Do it now!” Spears bellowed out.

  “Sir! Blast doors closing on all levels! Override not responding!” As if to punctuate that report, the heavy blast door closed with a thump, sealing off Operations from the rest of the complex.

  “SCRAM failed! Shunting to auxiliary power!”

  No. No, this can’t be happening, Spears thought. All my hard work. All those years of being overlooked and shuffled from one ass end of nowhere to another then stuck in some musty overlooked office in the Pentagon. It can’t end like this.

  His body shivered as a cold sweat covered him as if a block of ice had formed deep inside his core. He looked around the room as technicians and engineers tried to control the complex that was resisting their efforts.

  “Coolant levels decreasing! Reactor core reaching critical!”

  ***

  Chapter 13

  West of Central Park, New York City, Sierra-3 Forward Recon Team

  Sergeant Stanislaus Luzetski slowly peered around the aromatic dumpster. Behind him, the survivors of his forward recon team were crouched, weapons ready. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the rest of the scout teams and the brigade for that matter. Sierra-3 had been dropped on a rooftop with the mission to mark targets and provide overwatch and support for the ground troops that were supposed to move into the city. The plan was to sweep and clear from the north end of Manhattan Island, meet forces from Fort Ticonderoga, the Forward Operating Base established in Central Park, and continue south. This combined force would distract the Zulus and provide a buffer zone while the uninfected citizens would be evacuated by the Coast Guard, the Navy, and any other agency that was available.

  What sounded doable during the mission brief and looked good on paper, didn’t work in the real world. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Especially an enemy that was unlike anything ever encountered previously.

  Combat is a flexible and very fluid environment. You can’t be tied down to a plan that doesn’t have any room for deviations or unexpected incidents. That’s been proven time and again yet some suckhead in command obviously hadn’t been taught that at Hudson High. Goddamn ring knockers, Ski thought as he leaned against the brick wall and glanced back at the other men in his recon element. Pruitt, the designated marksman, was glassing the buildings at his end of the alley for sign of the Zulus. He was also trying to get a good angle to see how the perimeter of Fort Ti looked. Graham or ‘Doc’ as they called him was in the middle of the gaggle covering his zone. Pulling drag was Jiminez, a Puerto Rican kid who had been the RTO until all commo ceased. There had been a fourth member, Washington. But, he had disappeared once Sierra-3 had left the roof of their overwatch position.

  Sierra-3’s mission had been simple. Chopper in, fast rope down to a rooftop, provide overwatch and security for the Air Force pukes who supposed to drop in a complete field hospital. Simple, concise, predictable. Then the shit hit the fan. What the briefing had left out was the real important facts. Facts that the infected civilians were insane. Cannibalistically insane. The loss of Sierra-2 to those things, they weren’t humans anymore, opened everyone’s eyes. Dropping the Harlem River Bridge sealed the deal. That bridge had been dropped by precision ordnance that Sierra-3 had guided in. That signified that the entire operation had gone to Hell. Command ordered that all means off the island be destroyed or made impassable. Ski figured the combat engineers had collapsed the subway tunnels while the Air Force had pounded the bridges. In the time that they had been stuck on that roof surrounded by thousands of infected, they had monitored the breakdown of command and the loss of the other SR teams until all transmissions from Fort Ti just stopped only to be replaced by dead air. Forced off the roof when the infected or what they had been told to refer to as Zulus, entered the building and swarmed their location, they had evaded the ravenous horde by dropping onto the fire escape and running down a few floors before taking refuge inside a law office.

  Once inside, with the door heavily barricaded, they took stock of their supplies. What they had with them was enough to last a few weeks. But they had lost the team’s primary suppressive weapon, the SAW that Washington had grabbed after Stamper had made his dramatic exit. Stamper was the quiet one, never said much and was the only married man on the team. He had given away their position by firing through a 100 round drum when the team had tried to guide a survivor and her little boy to the questionable safety of their building. Stamper had then dropped the empty M249, shrugged off his tactical vest and stepped off the roof holding a live grenade in each hand. The seven story fall didn’t quite muffle the detonations when Stamper impacted the street below.

  Ski still had nightmares of Stamper stepping off the roof with tears streaking his face. He had known Stamper for years, even been over to his house, met his wife and kids, drank beer around the barbeque. It didn’t make any sense. But, Ski knew that pressure under hostile conditions made soldiers, even experienced ones like Stamper, reach a breaking point. A quiet tone brought his attention back to the present. The bulge of a BattleNet Tablet inside his tactical vest chirped again indicating it was receiving a signal. The BN Tablet was small, not what he had expected when he first heard about them, not much bigger than an old style PDA. The BattleNet System had replaced the Blue Force Trackers. In the chaos of evacuating the r
oof, they had left the team’s tablet behind along with some other important but not mission critical gear. Ski blamed himself for that oversight. If he had been more aware of his surroundings and not so focused on the Zulu’s, he could have organized a better withdrawal from their rooftop aerie. This particular tablet he had recovered from an abandoned checkpoint they had passed through. The Zulus had swept that same checkpoint as was evident from the fire trails, blood, and half devoured body parts strewn on the ground and in the vehicles. Sierra-3 had salvaged what they could, mostly meal packs and a few magazines for their weapons before they moved to another hide site. They could have taken one of the Hummers but in a city choked with abandoned vehicles, the decision was made to remain on foot.

  Removing the tablet, Ski tapped the screen then watched the hourglass symbol spin as the internal electronics synchronized with the Mil-Sats in orbit. At least the satellites were still operating. For how long was anyone’s guess. The screen blinked then resized to show where they were in relation to where Fort Ti was. Studying the image, he looked for any other blue diamonds, the icon for friendly forces. Besides his team there was a small concentration near Fort Ti. He tapped the screen to resize the image. Blue diamonds appeared at Governor’s Island. The rest of Manhattan was blank. The window on the right side of the screen that would show other friendly assets in his immediate area or available support was also blank. Slowly shaking his head, he powered down the tablet and tucked it back inside his vest. Fall on the east coast was making its presence known as the rain had let up to a drizzle that masked the sounds of their movement through the dead city. The smell of rain on asphalt helped to cover the stench of rot and decay. Ski couldn’t help but think back to the way it was before all this happened.