“If you want to look around for any last goodies, I’m going to give the truck one last look over. After watching the Army drivers on the trip down here, I guess the idea rubbed off on me. It should just take a few minutes to check fluid levels and see if there are any engine leaks.
I wonder if that Air Force asshole is as crazy as his brother Sgt William Spradling thought to himself as Major Wilson tried to pace in the back of the Stryker, annoying and angering those he bumped into and tripped over. Spradling was fortunate to be in the commander’s seat, safe from the antics of the Air Force Major.
“Sergeant, why aren’t we there yet? It shouldn’t be taking this long.” I bet they’re intentionally driving slow to give the bitch a chance to escape, they probably radioed her! He thought angrily.
“Sir, we’re less than five mikes out. I recommend you strap in, in the event we have to maneuver.” That was the moment the Stryker turned onto Camelback Road. The Major went flying into the bulkhead with a sickening thud before he crumpled down atop a pair of soldiers strapped into their seats.
“This ain’t happening to me! Driver, pull it over.” Spradling unbuckled from his position and bent over until he could see the Major. A pair of troops were starting to bandage what appeared to be his whole face. His nose was gushing blood where it was broken and it looked like the start of two black eyes. A tear across his forehead was deep enough to see his skull. That serves the bastard right for being an idiot and an ass. That’s going to leave a nastier scar than Herman Munster! He thought while fighting the urge to grin in front of the men.
“Sergeant Spradling, we need to get the Major to the hospital. He’s not responding, and both eyes are dilated. His breathing is also very shallow. I’m pretty sure he has a concussion. If we don’t get him back for medical attention we may as well pull the trigger here ourselves.” Spradling looked at the medic for just a minute before taking action.
“Driver, get us back to the barn ASAP.” He was almost ejected from his seat when the driver turned sharply. Bracing himself against the bulkhead, he was able to steady himself long enough to strap back into his seat. Out of sight from the troops, he smiled as he radioed the other Stryker that the mission was scrubbed for a medical emergency. When the other Stryker commander volunteered to go on alone, Spradling reminded him of the patrol rules that included no less than two vehicles for any patrol. He laughed at the knowledge the lieutenant would most likely escape from the major now.
Caleb was pleasantly surprised that the electric cooler fit so perfectly on the bench seat as he tied it in place with a bungee cord. The back seat of the crew cab was already filled with personal effects along with a pair of M4s and a box of ammo. He looked at the satellite phone and was tempted to check for messages when he heard Gloria walking towards the truck. He glanced in her direction, surprised. She had changed to shorts and a t-shirt, she was wearing her web gear loose so that it just hanged from her shoulders. He began to suggest she grab her armor when he remembered his was in the buried in the back of the cab with hers. She was carrying a cardboard box and actually smiling at him as she approached.
“I emptied out the rest of the vending machines, I have enough candy bars, gum and assorted chips to put us on the weight control program.” Her smile disappeared as soon as she spoke. Caleb could see the pain in her eyes.
“I call dibs on any Almonds Joys! I’d kill for one now,” he said as he tried to take the box from her.
“Nice try, Cowboy. I’ll stow them in the truck.” Within easy reach for me and out of your reach, she thought and smiled again at Caleb. He took off his web gear and put it over his seat, then took the 9mm out of its holster and stuck it inside the door’s pocket, and then climbed into the cab. I’m finally going to get back home to mom and dad. I hope--his thoughts were interrupted as Gloria climbed up on the side of the truck and deposited the box behind her seat, tossing something into his lap. He recognized the blue wrapper of his favorite candy bar instantly and exaggeratedly tore into it, while Gloria laughed at his actions. She took off her load-bearing gear and copied Caleb in wrapping it around the back of her seat back, and then sticking the .45 into the passenger door pocket, next to a map that was half sticking out.
“Giddy up, Cowboy! Let’s get this show moving.” Gloria reached up to the overhead console and turned on the satellite radio. “I’ll be happy when we have more than Zombie radio to listen to, they play too much old crap.” Gloria complained as the music began to play.
Goodbye my friend it’s hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
“Oh god, turn it off! I’d rather listen to you scratch a blackboard than listen to that station. There’s something that’s just wrong with that station.” The truck lurched forward and Caleb imagined boxes shifting and falling in the back of the truck as he tried to settle down.
“Alright already, chill. I have my tunes with me, I come prepared.” She inserted her drive and sat back, closing her eyes as a saxophone began playing a soft jazz instrumental. Caleb listened for a few minutes debating whether or not to turn the radio back on, before ignoring the music and concentrating on his driving, heading for the Loop 303, knowing that Bell Rd was not far off.
“What the hell’s up with that?” Caleb slowed down the truck but didn’t stop as he pointed to a pair of Strykers that were turning around, far off to the west.
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’d better not come back to this area.” Gloria replied as she tried to focus on her music and ignore Caleb.
Chapter 17
Douglas, Wyoming. April 13, 2029
The small conference room was filled mainly with Army personnel, leaving Air Force Major ‘Arnie’ Arnot, a little confused. The personnel were all in clean uniforms and were clean themselves, but had an assortment of beards that easily predated the apocalypse. Six out of the dozen had been retired yet managed to rejoin the other 10th Special Forces survivors, out of Fort Carson, Colorado, that had arrived in Douglas not long ago. Those retirees had quickly been returned to active duty upon reporting in. The only other Air Force member in the room with him was Technical Sergeant Cary Widauf, who had made the original discovery about Travis AFB. He was providing technical support, playing the visual displays. He would also be available to answer any questions if the Major got stuck.
“Good morning, Gentlemen. I’m Major Arnot, Special Operations, Space Command. My assistant, Technical Sergeant Widauf, is also from Space Command’s Special Operations unit. I’ll clarify now we are not field operators, but specialists the Air Force has usually claimed don’t exist. The two of us are the only survivors of our unit. The briefing you are about to receive is Top Secret.” Arnot made a barely perceptible nod and Widauf dimmed the lights and put up the first picture.
“This is Travis AFB as of 48 hours ago. The base appears to be under control of the Air Force, but no attempts to contact them have been acknowledged. We don’t know if the base has been taken over by rogue elements of the military, civilians, or others.” He nodded slightly and a new picture was displayed.
“You can see here, the sun has set, yet the same personnel are guarding areas of the base and infected that have come out are ignoring the sentries. We don’t know if the guards were infected and recovered, as we have seen in a few cases.” Arnot paused for a moment, remembering Caleb, “Before this,” he continued, “that meant that the partially infected were able to go out into the sunlight and were in control of themselves, appearing like anyone else, except they were stronger and their eyes were fully dilated, making it easy to identify them. Others that had been fully infected, for reasons not yet understood, recovered, but were still carrying the infection. These folks still had fully dilated eyes, but were able to control themselves and appear normal. We found a few people like that. One man that was picked up by a patrol, had no memory of being infected yet he’d obviously been since he was missing his pants and stunk like one, not to mention his dilated eyes. He recently dis
appeared. We think he went to be with his infected family north of here. The other is a very old woman we found when we were clearing houses, she was in the basement of a house, suffering from broken bones, yet made a full recovery and doesn’t act or look like a senior citizen. For her safety, she accepted house arrest. We have folks that refuse to distinguish her from those who are a real danger. I’m at a loss for any other explanation as to why the guards on the base are ignored by the infected, which may mean they have a cure for the infection, one more thing to check out.
The main thing that need to be investigated,” Arnot gave a nod to advance to the next screen, “are these three hangars that are showing they have a strong heat source as well as a significantly high electronic signatures that are not able to be identified. We believe extraterrestrial ships may be in the hangars.” Arnot paused, waiting for laughter that did not come. “Gentlemen, that’s all the information I have for you. If you have any questions, I’ll try my best to answer them.”
“Sir, Sergeant First Class Hopkins, 10th Group. Can you elaborate on the ETs in regard to their security measures? Will they see us if we drop in close?”
“We aren’t aware of any security or countermeasure they have available to them. We’re not even sure what the electronic emissions we’ve detected are.”
“Sir, Sergeant First Class Hope, 10th Group. This is the first I heard about infected that have recovered from the disease. Do they have any other info on recovery numbers from other places?”
“I only know of one other that was infected, but he never really turned. He was commissioned for his actions above and beyond…” Arnot stopped for a second as an epiphany hit him. “Technical Sergeant Widauf, I want you to find Lieutenant White ASAP after the meeting. He will be going along on the mission.” Arnot turned back to his audience, “Lieutenant White will be made available to you as soon as we find him. I believe he’s still in Arizona. Some of the traits I forgot to mention earlier are, he can see in the dark, and can sense people near him, both infected and normal. Infected also ignore him, I suspect if you’re walking down some dark alleys, his abilities may come in handy, especially if you need to know if they are dangerous or not.” A few of the NCOs looked around at each other at the announcement, none appeared pleased.
“Sir, Sergeant Pruitt, 10th Group. What type of assets will be available to us for the mission?” Arnot was quick to answer the question.
“Anything we have is available for the mission. If you need C-130s, you only need to say how many. Any transport we have will be available from motorcycles to M1 tanks. Material assets will not be a limiting factor in the mission.”
“Sir, I grew up in Fairfield, outside the base. When I was a kid we used to sneak onto the base all the time. I’d like to volunteer to accompany the team,” offered Technical Sergeant Widauf. Then I can see if my parents are okay at the same time, he thought.
“I’ll leave that up to the team to decide, Sergeant Widauf,” Arnot replied, unsuccessfully trying to hide his anger with the NCO for surprising him in the meeting with the question.
“Sir, I don’t believe we’ll have any more questions, until we plan the mission, then I’m sure we’ll have a few more.” Sergeant First Class Hope said as he rose from his seat.
“Thank you, Gentlemen. Technical Sergeant Widauf will be available for any mission related questions that may come up later, as well as being my personal liaison. Please keep your seats.” The Major said as he rose and headed for the door, Technical Sergeant Widauf a couple of steps behind him.
“There’s an old Chinese curse and I’ll be damned if we aren’t the target of it, it goes, ‘May you live in interesting times’. That’s where we’re at for the moment.” Sgt First Class Hopkins lamented.
“I’d say more like ‘you’re screwed’ except that’s been our status since April Fool’s Day. First monsters, now aliens, do we have any vampires they failed to mention?” Sergeant Pruitt added.
“Gentlemen, If they do, we’ll kick their asses as well. Now we need to get an initial idea of how we play this. I wish we would’ve had time to train together, but I think we got a pretty good idea from our time getting here from Carson. Is anyone here familiar with the target? I’ve flown through there a few times, the only thing I remember is the terminal and billeting. I didn’t explore when I was there.” Sgt First Class Hope replied. He waited for any replies, then threw out a scenario he was sure would get some interaction going. “I believe I should go in via night time HALO with a four man team. From the initial slides of the base, there’s plenty of farmland surrounding the base, so the risk of infected in the drop zone should be minimal. Then during daylight, find a point to infiltrate the base and then secure a building to set up in. I’d go in light, just silenced .22s and suppressed M4s, 3 days of rations, and secure sat phones for each team member. After determining everything we can on the enemy, exfiltrate the base, then procure local transportation, and then drive to a nearby airport for extraction.” Hope stood for a moment as his idea was digested by team members, it didn’t take long for counter ideas and proposals to come out, some shouted as they tried to talk over each other.
“At ease gentlemen!” Hope held up both his hands as if in surrender. “Break into three teams, use any information available to you and start throwing ideas off each other. I’ll be back in an hour and listen to what you’ve come up with.” Closing the door behind him, he could hear the chairs noisily being moved around as groups were formed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, softly laughing at himself for still smoking cheap generics when he could have any he was willing to go into a store and liberate.
He breathed in deeply, feeling the smoke fill his lungs. Stowing the pack back in his pocket, he pulled out his medicine and popped a couple into his mouth, not worrying about water. Thank you, Lord for one more op, he thought just before he was hit with a coughing fit as his body spasmed with pain. If I’m lucky, I’ll get my ticket punched, then I won’t have to eat a bullet. Jorge followed the exit signs until he was in the back of the building. There were a couple of picnic tables surrounded by cigarette butts; an Airman and soldier were sitting close to each other and looked up at him in disappointment as they moved a little further apart. The young Airman reminded him of his wife, he plopped down on the unused table facing away from the pair, and began to flash back on the good times he’d had for thirty years of marriage until cancer took her from him the same time he found out he had cancer. He took a look over at the couple and saw they were attacking each other with their tongues. He felt obligated to correct them for their public display of affection, but instead whispered softly, “Enjoy your lives,” too softly for them to even hear as he went back into the building.
Chapter 18
Camp Verde, Arizona. April 13, 2029
“Give me a break!” Caleb shouted, while trying to stop the truck. The small bridge over the Verde River was down and he had no warning as he was pushing the huge truck to go as fast as he could on Highway 17, north of Phoenix. His hollering combined with the truck rapidly slowing thrust Gloria awake as she tried to see what was going on.
“Looks like the bridge is out,” she said as she glanced over at Caleb, noticing his face was covered in sweat, even with the interior of the cab being nice and cool.
“Do ya think?” He practically shouted, unbuckling himself and opening the door. He grabbed his M4 out of habit, then jumped to the ground. There was a nice breeze from the north that was kicking up trash alongside the road while he tried to listen for anything out of the ordinary. He walked up to the edge of the road and noticed the sides of where the bridge had been were blackened, there was no smell of chemicals, so he relaxed a little, figuring the damage had been more than a week old, to leave no more than a residual smell of explosives.
“If we turn back around, I know a shortcut.” Gloria shouted through the open window. Grumbling, Caleb headed back to the truck. “Head for the eastbound exit for Camp Ve
rde. Then we can head for Winslow and pick up Interstate 40 East.” Caleb noticed she was holding her M4 and concentrating on their surroundings.
“You sense or feel anyone nearby?” Caleb asked concerned, before he took another moment to try to feel anything himself.
“There’s infected in some of those houses across the river, and some scattered normals. I don’t feel anyone that’s aware or cares about us one way or the other. But if we don’t move it, that might change.”
“This is going to be fun,” Caleb said sarcastically as he looked at each side of the road and the barriers that would make doing a reverse y-turn even more difficult, especially while towing the pickup truck. He started slowly and kept having to make adjustments as the trailer took on a mind of its own. Half a mile later, he had enough room to turn, to go up the exit ramp.
“Wow, that must have been a mess.” Gloria pointed to a gas station cum fast food restaurant with all the windows and doors shot out, the parking lot appeared as one large spot of dried blood with thousands of spent rounds littering the lot.
“Between that and the blown bridge, I think this is a good area to avoid. Now, where am I driving?” Caleb was feeling agitated and wanted to leave before things started to happen.
“Just keep heading east on the 260, and follow the signs for Winslow, I think it’ll be the 87. I only took this shortcut once when I was first arrived at Luke.” Gloria became quiet as she thought of her friends and comrades at Luke AFB. Caleb picked up on her mood and, against his better judgment turned on the radio.
Just find a place make your stand
Take it easy
Well, I'm a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
Caleb reached over and turned off the radio as quickly as he could. Gloria looked over at him, and then started to laugh at his antics.
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