Day of Reckoning

by G. Michael Hopf

  Higgins collapsed. “Fuck, I’m hit!”

  “Corpsman, up!” Brennan called out.

  All the men of first platoon repeated the call for the corpsman.

  Another volley of bullets ripped through the steel door, this time striking Higgins in the neck and jaw.

  “Fuck!” Brennan hollered. He grabbed Higgins by the back of his tactical vest and dragged him clear of the door.

  Vickers came down to the landing and pulled a fragmentation grenade from his vest. “Fuck this guy. Frag out!” he yelled as he opened the door and tossed the grenade in.

  A loud explosion followed seconds later.

  Vickers threw the door open and stepped into the cloud of smoke. He spotted the shooter crawling on the floor. Without a second’s hesitation, he squeezed the trigger, putting several well-aimed shots into the man, killing him. He looked around and hollered, “I’ve got more rooms down here!”

  The corpsman sprinted down the stairs to Higgins.

  Higgins coughed up blood and wheezed heavily.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Petty Officer Third Class Wendall said, examining Higgins.

  Higgins grabbed Wendall by the arm, coughed up a large amount of blood and died.

  Brennan and the others in first platoon were already in the hallway, clearing rooms.

  “Higgins is KIA,” Wendall radioed.

  Hearing Wendall’s transmission boiled Brennan’s blood, but there wasn’t time for remorse, they had a mission to complete.

  Like the floor above, the offices on this floor were empty except for random furniture.

  “Kilo Actual, Kilo Two, I’m hearing a lot of voices down on the third level,” Vickers radioed.

  “Take your team down. Teams one and three will stay on level two,” Brennan replied.

  “Roger that,” Vickers said.

  Brennan watched Vickers and his team disappear back into the stairwell.

  Klyde ran up to Brennan, his eyes wide. “You gotta see this.” He turned around and headed towards the last doorway on that hall.

  Brennan followed on his heels. When he entered the room, he found it was a large laboratory. “Bingo. Okay, guys, pull out your trash bags, start tossing anything that even remotely looks like intel. Bag and tag, boys!”

  “Sergeant Brennan, over here!” Klyde called out.

  Brennan looked and saw Klyde standing in front of a large walk-in freezer. He rushed over. “What do you have?”

  The ground shook.

  Both men flinched with Klyde looking towards the drop ceiling. “You suppose they tagged another bird?”

  “God knows,” Brennan replied. “What do you have in here?”

  “Vials, a shit ton of them,” Klyde said, pointing inside the twelve-by-twelve-foot walk-in.

  Brennan pushed past the thick vertical plastic sheeting and into the bone-chilling space.

  Seven-foot-tall metal racks lined the walls. Stacked two deep on the five-shelf racks were boxes marked Printer / Copier Replacement Toner. Brennan saw a box open and peered inside to find exactly what Klyde described. He pulled out a single vial and examined it. Inside was a thick brown liquid. There was nothing marking or identifying what it was on the outside. He placed it back and tore open another box. There he found more. He did the same to three other boxes, the contents all the same.

  “Kilo Actual, we’ve got contact, say again, we’ve got contact with our friends ,” Vickers radioed.

  “Copy that. What’s your location?” Brennan replied.

  “Level four. They came out of nowhere. We were engaging people. Things went quiet for a moment; then they came at us. It was weird, as if those people were turning into those things, and fast.”

  “I’ll send team three.”

  “Negative, I’m making the call. We’re sealing this floor off, too many.”

  “Kilo Actual, this is Mike Actual. What’s your sit rep?” Owens cut in on the radio.

  “Gathering intel on level two. Team two is engaging droolers on level four,” Brennan replied to Owens.

  “Copy that. We’re securing their barracks on the west side of the compound. They’re fighting back hard.”

  “You need us?”

  “Negative, get as much intel as you can.”

  “Owens, be advised. Vickers gave an odd report. He said that at first he was fighting people, things went silent, then those things showed up. He thinks the people mutated.”

  “Roger that, I’ll pass that down. Keep your head on swivel. Out,” Owens said.

  A scream came from the far end of the hallway and gunfire erupted shortly afterwards.

  Brennan turned to Klyde and ordered, “Bag a box. Destroy the rest.”

  “Copy that,” Klyde said.

  Brennan ran out of the walk into the hallway.

  The gunfire was heavy, as were the screams.

  He peered out the door and saw several droolers sprinting from the stairwell.

  Several Marines began to engage.

  The drooler in the lead was struck. It fell and splayed out in the hall. The one behind it leapt over it, kicked off the wall and hurled itself towards one of the Marines.

  Four more droolers burst from the stairwell.

  “Where the fuck are they coming from?” Brennan hollered leveling his rifle and shooting.

  The second drooler’s gymnastic-like maneuvers allowed it to reach Lance Corporal Whitney. With its left hand, it grabbed Whitney by the throat, picked him up, and with its right, thrust it up underneath his vest and body armor into Whitney’s lower abdomen.

  Whitney cried out in pain.

  The drooler twisted and turned its right arm and pulled out a glob of Whitney’s intestines.

  Brennan aimed and shot, striking the drooler in the head.

  It wailed and dropped dead, its right hand still clinging to Whitney’s guts.

  “Frag out!” a Marine called out, tossing a grenade.

  Brennan ducked behind the door jamb.

  The grenade detonated with an ear-smashing concussion.

  Screams came from within the smoke and haze.

  “No, no!” a man cried out then fell silent after the sound of bones crushing.

  A screeching wail filled the darkened hall.

  Brennan knew it was one of them. The grenade hadn’t killed it.

  A volley of gunfire rang out followed by the sounds of tussling.

  He tried to see but the smoke was still too thick. “First platoon, call out!” Brennan yelled.

  Silence.

  “Fuck,” Brennan said under his breath.

  The screeching continued.

  Brennan pulled a grenade from his vest, thumbed the clip, pulled the pin and tossed it. “Eat some shrapnel, motherfucker.”

  Almost instantly the grenade came back, bouncing off the edge of the door jamb.

  Seeing the grenade he had just tossed spinning feet from him, Brennan scurried away. He curled up into a ball behind a cabinet.

  The grenade went off.

  Gunfire came from the far end, near the stairwell.

  Brennan heard a thump on the floor. He looked and saw a drooler laid out in the doorway.

  “Kilo Actual, this is Kilo Two. What’s your location?” Vickers radioed.

  “Hunkered down, far room on left,” Brennan replied.

  “Copy that. You good?”

  “Yes.”

  “All clear in the hall.”

  “Klyde, you still in the back?” Brennan called out.

  “Yep.”

  “Grab what you have. Let’s go,” Brennan ordered as he tugged at his MOPP suit collar. “God, I hate this thing. Feels like I’m suffocating.”

  Klyde stepped out of the back with a large sack slung across his back. He slammed the thick heavy door and hustled away.

  A loud thump came from inside the walk-in freezer.

  “Good job,” Brennan said.

  Klyde pointed to the sack. “I feel like Santa Claus.”

  Brennan led the
m out of the laboratory, stepping over the dead drooler in the doorway. In the hall they discovered a gruesome scene.

  Vickers and several others were gathered at the end of the hallway, guarding the stairwell.

  From floor to ceiling, blood, guts and various body parts ranging from small to large covered the entire hallway.

  “Where’s everyone?” Brennan asked.

  Vickers looked back and hollered, “C’mon, Sergeant, hurry up.”

  Brennan’s ears were ringing from the two grenade blasts. He felt something warm and wet sliding down behind his jaw. He reached back, touched it and brought his hand forward. It was blood.

  His eyes bounced around the hall. There were so many bodies it was hard to count. “Members of team three, sound off.”

  Silence.

  “Team one?”

  “Here,” Dietz said, stepping out of a side room, his MOPP suit covered in soot and blood.

  “I’m good,” Wendall called out. He was two steps behind Dietz.

  “And Klyde, you’re here, team one is mostly good. Is there anyone at all here from team three?” Brennan said loudly.

  No one sounded off.

  Vickers looked over his shoulder and said, “We lost one.”

  “Copy that,” Brennan said. “Wendall, see if any of our guys are alive.”

  Wendall had a shell-shocked look on his face. “Roger that.”

  Brennan walked up to Vickers and patted him on the shoulder. “I thought there was like six maybe seven of those fucking things, looks more like twenty plus.”

  “They must have come from up above,” Vickers said. “We did our best to clear the other levels below and lock them down. You should’ve seen it. We were shooting at these raghead bastards, they disappeared into a room, and seconds later those things came running out. They’re different too. They’re stronger, faster; it was crazy how fast they were.”

  “I noticed that too. One seemed to walk on the wall before pouncing on Whitney and ripping out his guts with its bare hands. And get this, I tossed a grenade but had it come back at me. I swear the thing caught it and tossed it back at me.”

  “These droolers aren’t like the ones we fought in Somalia,” Vickers said.

  “I agree, we’re dealing with a better…for lack of a better word, version.”

  “Yep.”

  “They’ve got contact above too, same situation. In fact, let me update Owens,” Brennan said. He keyed his radio, “Mike Actual, this is Kilo Actual. Come in. Over.”

  “Go for Mike Actual.”

  “We’ve secured this building, have intel, ready to come topside.”

  “Proceed to the children’s housing. We’ve fallen back there. Hurry,” Owens said.

  “What’s the situation topside?”

  “Shit show, it’s like we stirred up a hornet’s nest. Dozens of droolers. Exit through the east doors, come directly across the parking lot, enter the north entrance,” Owens said. “Gotta go.”

  Vickers chuckled and said, “Never a dull moment.”

  “Never is,” Brennan replied.

  “But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, buddy. Now, let’s go fuck some shit up.”

  Rancho Bernardo, California

  Mo had given up on school. Why bother? he thought. Today he had sequestered himself in his room, playing video games and just relaxing.

  He heard his father leave for poker night and wondered if he’d even noticed he hadn’t gone to school. Probably not, he mused.

  A text popped up.

  “Where have you been?” Malik texted.

  “Been home, why go to school?” he replied.

  “Not like you,” Malik said.

  “I thought I’d enjoy what time I have.”

  “Always a Debbie Downer. School is fun. Especially all the easy white girls.”

  Mo wondered why someone like Malik, who seemed to love American culture, wanted to destroy it so much. Or was something else driving him? He came from a good family. They had money. He was educated. They didn’t want for anything. So what was it?

  Mo heard footsteps in the hall. He lowered the phone and readied for his mother to knock and enter, but the footfalls came and went by.

  He listened, but nothing. He went back to scrolling through his phone.

  A loud knock sounded from the front door.

  He sat up and rushed to the window to see who it might be. He peered down and saw it was the UPS delivery driver. He sighed and went back to lounging on his bed. He began to wonder if his mother even knew he was home. That had to be the reason she didn’t stop by his room.

  Their argument the other night was eating at him. He had to make it right. He tossed his phone on the bed and exited the room. He walked to her bedroom and tapped on the door.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, her voice showing alarm at someone being there.

  “It’s me, Mom.”

  She threw open the door and asked, “Come to apologize to your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowned, a tear in her right eye.

  “I, um, wanted to say I love you and I’m sorry for yelling at you,” he said, his head lowered.

  Her frown became more pronounced as more tears welled up in her eyes. She grabbed and pulled him close. “It’s okay, my big and beautiful boy, it’s okay.”

  Knocking again at the front door.

  She pulled away and said, “Probably a delivery. I was expecting something.”

  He stepped out into the hallway and said, “Can’t be. I saw them stop by already.”

  More banging at the door, heavier this time.

  He raced down the stairs.

  She was fast behind him, curious as to who it could be.

  Mo took the doorknob in his grip. He knew who it was.

  “Open the door,” she said.

  “It’s them,” Mo said.

  She placed her hand tenderly on his arm and said, “Open the door, son, and embrace your destiny.”

  He turned the knob and opened the door. There in front of him stood Kareem and two other men he’d never seen.

  Kareem smiled and said, “It’s time.”

  Ramona, California

  Cassidy sat parked in his truck on the street in front of his house. He had spent last night in a hotel and wanted desperately to come home.

  He glanced at his phone, the twenty-third time he’d done so in mere minutes, hoping to see a text from Sophie, but like the other twenty-two times, nothing.

  He had never seen her so mad, but he prayed that if he could talk with her, he could smooth things over, hence why he sat waiting for her to return home from work.

  Growing impatient, he turned on the local talk radio channel.

  “Welcome back to our program, tonight in our In-depth segment we’ll explore and try to answer the question plaguing the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Who is Israfil? The new terror group The Bloody Hand came on the scene with the grisly Copenhagen terror attacks last week. As the intelligence community strives to find out more about this new group, one name has surfaced, Israfil. Many believe he is their leader, yet no one has seen him or knows where this mysterious figure came from. Tonight, my guest is Bradley Figueroa, a retired CIA analyst, who will help us go in-depth to unmask who this Israfil just might be…”

  A pair of headlights streamed into the cab of his truck. He looked and waited to see if it was Sophie.

  The car slowed, but instead of turning, it pulled up alongside him. He caught a glimpse and noticed it was her.

  He rolled down his window.

  She pulled up beside him and lowered her window. “What are you doing here?”

  “Soph, I’m sorry. Please, can we talk?”

  “I told you I’d let you know when I was ready. I’m still pissed at you.”

  “Please, just let me talk to you, try to explain.”

  “I don’t want excuses. I’m hurt that you betrayed my trust. I know you’re angry at your old work and I agree t
hat what they did to you was chicken shit, but you turned around and made the problem worse. You just can’t let it go.”

  “I, um, I just wanted a chance to prove I wasn’t wrong about that guy.”

  “You should have thought more about what you were doing. It was already difficult for you to get a job that required a background, now it will be impossible.”

  “I’ll do whatever you say, please.”

  “You’ve known me how long?”

  Cassidy thought.

  “Never mind, it’s not important. Don’t grovel; don’t come over here and do what you’re doing now. I can’t stand that. What you can do is show me, prove to me you can go get a job. I don’t want talk, I want action.”

  “Can we at least talk?”

  She put her car into gear and replied, “I need you to be strong. But right now you’re being weak.”

  Those words struck him very hard.

  “I want the man in my life to be determined, strong, discipline, focused. I’m not one of these women who want a whiney, groveling and pathetic version of a man. I’m sorry if I’m being harsh. You need to stand up. If you can’t do it for me, at least do it for yourself.”

  “You’re saying I’m not a man?”

  “Not right now, no.”

  “That’s so messed up.”

  “I do love you, but I’m at a stage in my life that I want the man I’m with to be just that, a man. Don’t come groveling. Don’t come begging to come home. Show me you can, prove to me you can get back on the saddle. Maybe my dad spoiled me but he was an inspirational and influential person in my life. He was present and always striving to be better. You know they say little girls end up wanting to marry a guy like their father…and right now, you’re nothing like my dad.”

  Cassidy shook his head in disbelief at the forward and direct way she was confronting him. He loved her and if she wanted him to prove he could stand up on his own, then he would do it. “I hear what you’re saying. I’ll go be that man. I promise.”

  She broke a faint smile. “Good. Call me when you’ve secured a job; then we can talk.”

  “Okay,” he replied.

  “And if you want to stay at the house, you can tomorrow night.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow for Boise. I’ll be gone a few days. The interview is on Monday. I thought I’d see my cousin who lives in Kuna.”