Redaction: Extinction Level Event (Part I)

by Andrews, Linda

  Manny watched them leave while Cowboy walked up.

  “They’re all dead. One was knifed in the chest. The others…”

  “The Redaction?”

  “Could be. The eyes are red, but it seems so fast. Most of them didn’t start coughing until three or four days ago. Now this…” Cowboy adjusted his facemask. “My wife and daughter started coughing the day before.”

  Henry nodded. “We need to get to the soldiers. Fast.”

  Manny swallowed hard. If this new Redaction killed in days, then most of those coughing would be dead soon.

  Chapter Forty-One

  David blew his nose into a napkin. Damn fires. Wadding up the paper, he stuffed it into his pocket along with the handful of others and watched the large bellied C-17 cargo plane taxi down the runway of Luke Air Force Base. The rows of grounded F-16 Raptors wavered in the hot exhaust. In the smoke clogged sky, he picked out the slim-lined Sentry ‘eye in the sky’ and its company of F-35 Lightning fighter jets circling the valley.

  “You getting sick, Big D?” Standing on the tarmac beside him, Robertson leaned against the back of their empty supply truck.

  “Sick of breathing in all this crap.” David shrugged. He knew better than to wave his hand. The smoke from the fires raging around the base interpreted the action as an invitation to invade his lungs. “Thought I was done with this shit when I left Iraq.”

  Across the tarmac, Air Force ground crews in uniform waited for the cargo plane to get close enough to direct it to its appointed spot.

  Robertson crossed his muscular arms across his chest. “This is worse than the fires in the Sandbox. Here we have to deal with Zipper-Suited-Sun-Gods on a daily basis.”

  “The pilots aren’t too bad.” David rolled his shoulders inside his ACUs. Once he and his men loaded Monday’s delivery onto the trucks, he could take a drive to see Mavis. She’d sounded sick on the phone. That wasn’t allowed. He needed her alive, wanted her to stay alive.

  “That’s cuz so many of them are sick in their beds.” Robertson shoved off the back of the truck and paced. “It’s weird, Big D. I think we’re the only group left that isn’t sick. And while my sparkling personality would explain why God spared me the uglies, I can’t account for the rest of you.”

  Leave it to Robertson to make the Redaction’s return into an ego stroke. Still… The private had a point. One that had been bothering David for a day and a half. Should he mention it to Mavis? She might have an explanation. Then again… “Not everyone caught the Redaction at the same time.”

  That could explain why his men remained healthy. For now. He checked the fit of his face mask.

  “Maybe, but we could see the sickness moving through the base, tent by tent. People got sick practically overnight.” Robertson stopped pacing and threw open his arms. “This feels different.”

  “People are recovering.” At least, that was the official word from the governor. Did he believe it? David wanted to. God knows he wanted to. But his gut remained in a hard knot. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and checked the readout.

  No missed calls.

  Robertson resumed his pacing. “Still no call from Wheelchair Henry?”

  David strained to hear the words above the screaming engine of the cargo plane before stuffing the spongy orange plugs into his ears. Shaking his head, he dropped the phone in his pocket. In his last message, the old soldier had said they’d be heading for Mavis’s at first light. He hoped nothing had delayed their departure. According to the infrared maps, their neighborhood had been surrounded by fires at noon.

  Gears groaned as the back of the plane opened. Ground crews streamed around the plane. Two Airmen driving forklifts shot out of the metal hangar.

  David waited by his truck and felt his men gather behind him. At least this part was routine—unload the supplies from the plane and parcel them out for the week’s delivery. Since they wouldn’t be returning to their base camp, they’d commandeered space in Hangar Foxtrot to stage the rations.

  With a handheld tablet in his hand, a pilot in orange earmuffs bounced down the cargo plane’s ramp. He paused at the bottom to bend over and cough before striding across the blacktop. The C-17’s engines whined then faded into silence.

  Walking away from his men, David marched to meet him halfway. Despite the protection of the face masks, he wanted the sick airman away from his healthy soldiers. He was ten yards away when David noticed a jeep racing toward them. The weak afternoon light bounced off the brass on the men’s collars and hats.

  Officers. David’s steps faltered. He recognized General Lister’s square jaw visible under his blue face mask. Despite being partially covered, the elongated face of the other man in the backseat must be the base’s commanding officer. Now what shit storm was headed his way?

  David reached the pilot first and held out his hand for the tablet.

  The airman held on to it while facing the incoming brass.

  The Jeep screeched to a halt so close the engine heated David’s leg.

  His attention shifted from the officers to the tightly packed cargo. Damn! The two were connected and his gut told him his rations were about to be confiscated.

  Lister hopped over the side of the Jeep. With a predatory gait, the Marine marched around to meet David. The dark screen of the computer in his left hand reflected bursts of sunlight. “Sergeant Major Dawson. We would like a word with you.”

  Luke Air Force Base’s commanding officer walked with the loose-hipped stride of crowned Zipper-suited-sun-god. He reached his subordinate and held out his hand, palm up. “I’ll take that, Captain.”

  “Aye, Sir.” The airman handed over the tablet with the ration details to his superior officer before jogging back to his plane.

  The base’s CO handed it to Lister.

  Blue tinged the Marine’s features when he started the tablet. His steel gray eyebrows migrated up his forehead as he peered at David. “Tell me, Sergeant Major, do you believe this latest round of illnesses to be harmless or the beginning of something else?”

  David eyed his superiors. Poker faces looked back at him. Sides were being drawn. His gut told him the military was about to take down the government for the survival of the people. He stifled the thought. No, not take down the government, take down the politicians. It was the people who were the government. Politicians had held themselves so far above the people that they might have been living in different plane of existence.

  The two commanders remained still, predators waiting to strike.

  Robertson’s laughter drifted on the smoke tainted air.

  He owed to it his men and folks like Wheelchair Henry and Manny and the hundreds of thousand like them who were fighting for their survival to stand against a political agenda. The people were his real commanders. Those were the true America.

  Not everyone would see it that way. God knew, Mavis had taken knocks for overreacting and panicking from the governor during her public address of reassurance and platitudes. David cleared his throat. If he sided with the losing team he’d be shot without a trail while the country remained under martial law.

  Maybe even after.

  He squared his shoulders. “I believe this is the beginning of the end of our way of life, possibly mankind.”

  Lister smiled, deepening the grooves around his mouth. “Excellent! Because when those Jackasses woke up, they put the kibosh on supplying the evacuation routes.”

  David eyed the pallets of Meals-Ready-to-Eat being unloaded from the cargo hold. “You want the rations.”

  A statement not a question.

  Lister nodded, turned the tablet around and flashed the screen at David. Triangles and dots marked the red paths snaking through Arizona and ending in the Southwest corner of Colorado. “Not all. Just most.”

  “And the civilians?” He was disobeying orders for them too.

  “The fire will work in our favor there. We’re relocating the civilians to Mavis’s neighborhood as well as fall back p
oints in the East Valley. It will make it easier to evacuate everyone.” Lister called up a map of Mavis’s neighborhood. “We’ve created a fire break around the area as well as along the evac routes.”

  David paged down. It took a blink for the satellite to update the area. Scorched earth lapped at the South Mountain preserve. A used tire lot belched black smoke, obscuring most of the ground. Nothing seemed to be moving in the two square mile display. Had Wheelchair Henry made it out or been asphyxiated by the lack of oxygen?

  “We’ll combine your men along with the few healthy Airmen and Marines that we have left and send them out to set up evac stations along the route Mavis and I settled on.”

  “We can be ready to leave in an hour.” David accepted the handheld and used his body to stop the sunlight from bleaching the screen. The routes followed washes more than established roads. Obviously, the plan was for the citizens to walk across the desert. Could they make it to safety before the nuclear power plant melted down? “We’ll have to make multiple trips to disperse everything.”

  Reaching over the tablet, Lister swiped at the screen, changing the display. The dots were identified as land supplied. The triangles would be air drops. “You won’t have to do it all.”

  David nodded. He hoped the pilots were half as good as they bragged. Misplacing even one shipment would be the difference between life and death for everyone.

  With so many sick, they couldn’t afford to lose even one person to a fubar moment.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Trent shambled forward, keeping his attention on the ground. A blizzard of ash fluttered around him, shrouding the cortege of people accompanying him east. Sweat matted his hair from the heat. In the distance, fire roared, wood crackled, and things blew-up. What, he didn’t know nor did he particularly care. He just wanted to reach his condo, shut out this hellish world, and breath clean air.

  Another explosion rocked the world.

  This one transmitted itself through the ground. He staggered to the right. A can rattled to a stop against the weeds trimming the side of the road. His vision dimmed—maybe from the thickening smoke, maybe not. The soggy, wet fabric of his repurposed shirt sleeve clung to his face and his lungs heaved like bellows.

  He had to reach home. He had to be there when the cops arrived to tell him about his ex-wife’s suicide.

  Then he’d tell them about his Jag and the bitch who’d stolen it.

  The thought prodded him on.

  It was her fault he was stuck in this mess. Hers, his fucking ex-wife and that stupid whore, Belinda who’d died on him from a few drops of GHB. He should be home, enjoying a glass of wine and maybe an explicit phone chat with one of the other sluts who had been sexting him lately.

  A human shape dropped from his peripheral vision. A soft thud soon followed.

  And then something hit his boot and wrapped around his ankle.

  Stumbling, he went down on one knee. Stones dug into his knee through his worn pants. Fuck! Rolling over, he sat on his ass and groped for whatever had tripped him. His fingers danced over the pavement, before closing over paper. It fluttered in his hand as he brought it close enough to see it. He stared at Andrew Jackson. Holy shit! It was a twenty.

  That couldn’t have brought him down.

  After tucking the bill into his pocket, he reached down to his boot soles. His fingers brushed something hard. His nails scratched the bumpy surface before he grasped it. When he lifted it, his wrist protested. Damn, the thing was heavy. Once he brought it closer, he blinked the ash from his eyes. A book? What good was that?

  He dropped it onto his lap. Ash blew off the white cross on the cover. A gust of hot air whipped the cover open and flipped through the pages. The motion stopped at a Benjamin wedged into the pages. Trent slapped the one hundred dollar bill, before the wind snatched it away. Money. There was money in the Bible.

  Now that he could use.

  Pinching the covers closed, he surged to his feet and then tucked the book under his arm. Someone bumped into his side. He clamped down on the Bible as he spun about. “Watch it, asshole.”

  “Rats!” The silhouette shouted before being swallowed by the gray and black blizzard.

  Rats? Trent’s brain struggled to make sense of the word, to place it in its proper context.

  Someone screamed—a high-pitched shriek.

  The hair on his neck rose.

  Squeaks followed.

  Then more screams.

  And more squeaks—a sonic wall of them.

  A gust thinned the ash blizzard baring the street to his eyes. No, not street. The writhing squirming mass of black and brown had shiny beads for eyes and pink tails. They swarmed closer, leapt onto the legs of a fleeing man, bringing him to the ground. He collapsed with a grunt and thud, before being buried under the mass of furry bodies. Most of the vermin kept charging. To the tune of muffled screams, a few stayed to chew on fingers and soft tissue.

  Cries pierced the haze as the rat-covered mass rolled from side to side, plucking at the vermin swarming him.

  “Rats!” Pivoting on his heel, Trent surged forward. His pounding heart kept time to his churning feet. Run. Faster. Faster! They wouldn’t get him. He overtook a large lump and slammed against the side of it.

  The person went down with a yelp.

  Good. Trent continued his sprint. Gasping, he sucked the mask into his open mouth. Maybe if he knocked enough people down, he could get away. He raced through one intersection then another. His gaze flew to the sign at the corner. Ash obscured the letters. Where was he? The shrieks and squeals faded a bit. A stitch dug at his side. Digging his fingers in, he slowed to a jog. Humming started in his head. How long could he keep up this pace?

  Another ten minutes?

  Twenty?

  He used to do an hour at the gym. Why couldn’t he keep up the pace now? Right foot. Left foot. He plodded on. What was wrong with him? Wheezing, he slowed to a fast shamble. Shouldn’t there be a tree around here somewhere, so he could climb it and get a little rest? He staggered on. Bits of cinderblocks and wood littered the road.

  “Come to my voice.” A man called out. One that rang with authority.

  Finally! Trent’s knees buckled and his elbow clipped a hunk of block standing in the road. Peering into the ash fog, he tried to pick out a shape. Any shape. Pain shot up his arm and ricocheted around his skull. Panic soured his mouth. Had the man left? “Hello?”

  His voice sounded rusty with disuse and his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth.

  “We’ll get you to safety. Just come to my voice.”

  Safety. Home. Paradise. Trent kept his attention on the ground. One boot followed another. He’d make it. He was strong. A ray of light speckled the veil of ash.

  “I—I see a light. Is that you?” Trent forced his left foot forward, and then his right. His lungs heaved, blowing the mask out before sucking it against his teeth. He tried to follow the light to its source but lost it in the swirl.

  “Yes,” the man answered. “Come to the light.”

  Fear trailed a cold finger down his spine and he stumbled. Pebbles bit into his palms and knees. When he landed, trembling muscles begged him to stay down. That’s what those new age freaks said happened when you died. He was too important to die. He coughed tasting soot and grit.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Trent swallowed the clot in his throat. If this was his Maker, he wasn’t about to meet Him prostrate. He pushed to his feet, swaying. “Y-yes.”

  A man stepped from the swirling ash. A cone of yellow light surrounded the smooth silhouette of his head and highlighted the rifle in his arms.

  Trent blinked. Not his Maker after all. “You’re a soldier!”

  About time they showed up. He thought all the bastards had gone to cower in their bases.

  “Not a soldier, a Marine.” Stepping forward, the Marine latched onto Trent’s arm and tugged him to the left.

  Gripping the bible, Trent stumbled along. “Stop pushi
ng.”

  At least the soldiers would understand money. How many Benjamins would he need to get a ride home? He sure as hell wouldn’t be walking. Too many losers clogged the streets to say nothing of the rats.

  Glowing yellowish eyes burned through the gray haze.

  The Marine stopped as the eyes brightened. “We’re hearing tales of rats.”

  Trent heard the rumble of an idling truck engine right before the light sharpened into headlamps. A truck. They had a truck. He should definitely be able to get a ride.

  “Sir!” The Marine shook Trent’s arm. “How far back are the rats?”

  He snapped back to the present. What had the man asked? The sound of a squeak punctuated the haze. “Rats. They’re a couple of blocks back.”

  The Marine shoved him toward the truck. “Get in the back.”

  Trent stumbled forward. With his free hand, he traced the side of the truck until he reached the back. The truck rolled forward. He chased after it.

  In the strong beams of Halogen headlamps, uniformed arms reached out. Strong fingers wrapped around his wrist. “We’ll need both hands to pull you up, Sir.”

  Tucking the Bible under his chin, Trent reached his newly freed hand up.

  Another soldier grabbed hold of his wrist.

  Soon his feet left the ground. His thighs slammed into the bumper then scraped against it. Son of a bitch! Were they trying to skin him alive? He clamped his jaw shut. A heartbeat later, he’d cleared the gate.

  “Can you stand?” The soldier on his right asked.

  “Yes. I think so.” Clasping the Bible, he panted and locked his knees as they released him.

  The truck rolled forward, hit a bump and pitched the bed to the side.

  Trent lurched against another soldier. The bible with his money fell out of his hands and dropped to the floor.

  The soldier grunted and pushed him away. “You’ll have to sit on the floor. We’re pretty full.”

  Floor! Trent straightened and brushed at his clothes. Ash smeared into the fabric lightening the colors of his flannel shirt. Only then did he look around. In the faint light, he made out the gray faces staring back at him—young, old, men, women and children.