Isabella found their conversation interesting because no pretense existed in the form of saluting, or formally calling one another ‘sir’ or by their ranks. Hidden from public view, and the other military branches, the two men acted like friends, rather than colleagues. Several juts in the wall and pieces of artwork atop pedestals had provided her with cover thus far, allowing her to hear their conversation without muffled echoes. She reached an area in the hall where she dared not follow the two men because she’d be spotted instantly if they turned around. Fortunately, they didn’t seem rushed to leave the facility as they talked and stopped occasionally in the corridor.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re any closer to finding Nadeau,” the younger officer with the drawl said, openly unhappy about that particular situation.
“Our guys letting his accomplice loose didn’t help matters,” the older man said with a hint of disdain. “I realize that Metzger kid is important to us, but he’s not the key to locating that asshole Nadeau.”
Isabella perked up when she heard them speak of her brother-in-law, wondering how he’d become a household name among the military brass.
“I don’t like our resources being divided,” the younger officer said. “We’re hanging on by a thread around here and yet we send our people all over the country searching for a man who isn’t going to cooperate if and when we find him. Hell, he may not even have a cure to all of this, even if we do locate his compound.”
“At least when we found bin Laden we had technology on our side. This is literally searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“Even worse, most of our potential witnesses don’t have heartbeats.”
“I’d just like to know where we stand,” the older officer grumbled. “This unified military doesn’t always feel balanced to me. They ask us our opinions as a council then do whatever the fuck they want anyway.”
He hunched over to light his pipe with a match after striking it against the matchbook.
“Sure you should be doing that in here?” his fellow serviceman asked without judgment.
“Fuck smoking laws,” the older officer chuckled, since virtually every rule went out the window when the apocalypse struck.
Isabella watched the two men continue down the hall, their words eventually becoming indistinguishable echoes. Lingering just a few seconds, she caught a whiff of the cherry pipe tobacco and she was transported to her childhood when her grandfather smoked a pipe before smoking became so taboo in public.
She felt surprised that her country was run from afar by a President hidden in some secret bunker. Other than reasons of morale, or to serve as a red herring, Isabella couldn’t fathom why a body double was brought to the base. It sounded to her as though the military men ran things locally, like territorial governors, though she wasn’t certain she trusted their judgment in all matters. She’d heard rumors that many important politicians were rescued in the early stages, but thinking back, Isabella hadn’t really seen many civilians aside from the military families.
Bryce told her of protocols to save important government officials several times before the apocalypse, and he indicated the government constructed bunkers in secret locations, mainly in the central portions of the country. Isabella questioned if these men and women were much better than Nadeau if they remained underground until their supplies ran out, or they deemed it safe to return to the surface.
Wasting little time dwelling on situations she couldn’t control, Isabella returned to the main room and collected her phone, knowing she’d be compromised if anyone reviewed the building’s security footage and saw her spying on the two officers. She discreetly placed the phone in her back pocket to review once she left the building, and Isabella wasted no time heading for the closest exit, worried about the future of the military installation.
***
Before Isabella could review the footage on her phone, her friend said Nathan hadn’t been very cooperative, so she collected her son and crossed the base, holding his hand as she walked. The sky above appeared foreboding with ominous gray clouds in one direction, and the sun piercing white, fluffy clouds behind her. She wasn’t sure if a thunderstorm might dump an inch of rain on the base, or if the pleasant weather within her view might win out.
Deciding she didn’t want to appear suspicious, Isabella carried out some of her regular duties after settling down her son and leaving him in the hands of familiar instructors and aides at the school. Today wasn’t an instruction day, but parents were able to drop their children off daily when they worked their base jobs, or simply needed a break.
She spied Metzger jogging along the perimeter of the base, and the two made eye contact only briefly as though both were afraid to acknowledge one another and the secret alliance they’d formed since Bryce’s death. Isabella considered them avoiding one another even more suspicious than conversing every so often, but when people asked about their family situation, she simply dismissed it as though she blamed her brother-in-law for her husband’s death.
In truth, she felt relieved that Metzger witnessed the events in Buffalo because Dascher and the chaplain hadn’t provided specific details during the death notification.
Following an assignment, she helped move supplies from one of the base entrances to a building being used as a warehouse. There she helped unload boxes and bulk goods, unable to find an opportunity to view the footage. With privacy at a premium on the base, Isabella needed to find a building with no one around to play the video. After her second job of moving supplies from the warehouse to one of the ships, she found such an opportunity because the officer of the deck and the duty section remained near the ship’s bridge.
It seemed most of the docked ships served as additional warehouses because they weren’t patrolling the seas looking for pirates or terrorists in an age where nuclear weapons no longer posed a threat. Crews remained aboard the vessels in case some threat forced them to move out to sea in a timely manner, but they were no longer weapons of war, per se. Isabella couldn’t fathom why any world leader might use weapons of mass destruction when the job had already been done for them.
She began to question the future for mankind as her own government appeared shattered, and leadership in other countries couldn’t possibly have fared better. Although the military didn’t appear to be deceiving its citizens with malicious intentions, the reality of their current state wasn’t the pretty picture they painted for base residents.
Before, Isabella held out hope that the remaining political leaders and the brilliant scientific minds the military claimed to have saved would put the world back together, but now she wasn’t nearly as optimistic.
Holding the phone in both hands in front of her, she pressed the play icon on the screen to start the video, turning down the phone’s volume to avoid drawing attention.
She skipped past the part where officers filed in, conducting small talk before the meeting began. Their first orders of business dealt with issues around the base, and taking back Norfolk from the dead and any unwanted inhabitants. Isabella heard them speak of shooing survivors from the city under the threat of execution because they didn’t want the burden of feeding prisoners. They reported no one resisted, which alleviated some of her fears that the entire world turned barbaric, but she didn’t like the idea of leaving people behind.
Trying not to judge too harshly, because she didn’t know the entirety of their food supply, or how many mouths the military fed on the base, Isabella continued to watch.
A general briefed the group about orders from the President, which didn’t sound very specific in nature to Isabella. She couldn’t imagine how a person hundreds of feet underground could command a nation, and apparently the President opted to let his people taking the risks make most of the decisions.
Several Navy officers reported the status of their ships, and an Army colonel said their personnel continued to communicate with several
installations, including San Diego. Isabella considered their reports interesting, but she grew bored waiting for what she wanted to view. Not daring to forward the video for fear of missing important material, she managed to monitor her surroundings while absorbing information from the phone.
Near the end of the meeting, two scientists stepped forward after a brief introduction from the only general in the room.
“What have you learned?” the general inquired once the two men took center stage before a room of nearly twenty officials.
“We’ve been testing the blood samples on a daily basis,” the first scientist reported, wearing a dressy plaid shirt and black jeans, rather than a lab coat.
“And?”
“We’re making headway,” the second man said. “We have a few sample serums ready for testing.”
“Have you found additional subjects who fit the profile at the other installations?” the first scientist requested.
“Negative,” the colonel replied. “San Diego has one, but the subject they found in Florida was killed when the dead overran her and her escort assignment.”
As she viewed the footage, Isabella felt as though a dozen questions enter her mind at once.
Test subjects?
Sample serums?
Was Metzger a guinea pig, or was he a part of their unspoken solution?
“We’ve tested virtually everyone on the base,” the second scientist noted aloud. “Only the Metzger brothers provided a valid match, and now one of them is gone after the miscommunication during the Buffalo mission.”
“It would be ill-advised for you to talk about mission parameters you weren’t part of,” the general admonished him with a stony stare. “You’ll simply have to work with what you’ve got.”
“He’s beginning to ask questions,” the second scientist stated. “How do you propose we proceed if he grows agitated with the blood draws?”
“We can’t tell him the truth,” one Navy officer said.
“Maybe we should,” another suggested. “He and his brother have been nothing short of loyal.”
“With his brother gone, he may turn on us,” an Army major said.
“And if we treat him like a prisoner, he’ll begin to look for an escape route,” the general grumbled. “We can’t afford to lose him, and our security is divided between the water, the town, and the base right now. It wouldn’t take much for him to slip out if he chose to.”
“If he learns the truth about his brother, we’ll lose him for sure,” the colonel said. “Maybe it’s time to put him on lockdown.”
Isabella wondered what ‘truth’ the man spoke of, since everything she’d heard from Metzger and others in Buffalo sounded consistent.
“He doesn’t deserve to be a prisoner,” the older officer Isabella saw in the hallway earlier said during the meeting. “His brother was a patriot and risked a hell of a lot more than any of us in this cause.”
Although the man’s words fell on deaf ears, his point was made because the room fell into silence momentarily. No one could deny that Bryce didn’t risk life and limb for a cause that now appeared impossible to champion. Fournier escaped, and no other known links to Nadeau existed.
After nearly half a minute of silence, the general spoke once again.
“Perhaps Captain Timmons can shed some light on the mindset of our guest.”
Wearing a leather flight jacket, and appearing somewhat uncomfortable in a room filled with people who outranked him, the pilot hadn’t sat down the entire time. Instead, he leaned against a wall, reasonably close to where Isabella planted her phone to record the military meeting. He stood erect at the mention of his name, still uneasy around the brass, or perhaps the situation they discussed.
“He’s curious why he’s being followed constantly,” Timmons said forwardly. “It looks a bit odd when he’s the only civilian in this place receiving that kind of attention.”
“And what have you told him?” a Marine officer inquired.
“Nothing. I’ve followed your guidelines.”
“We’ve kept you in the dark about his status for your own good, Timmons,” the general said. “We wouldn’t want you to accidentally slip regarding crucial information.”
“He trusts me, but I don’t appreciate a genuinely forged friendship being used for tactical gain, sir.”
“I’ll advise you to watch your tone, Captain,” the general said, staring coldly at the pilot. “It’s bad enough you’ve been providing free flight lessons. We’ve only allowed this to continue because we trust that you’ll keep your new friend motivated to stay here, where it’s safer for everyone.”
“Yes, sir,” Timmons said, his words just short of biting.
Now the general turned his attention to the entire room.
“For the sake of a few new members to our council, perhaps we should address our current science project in detail. Council members only, please.”
Over the course of the next few minutes, the remainder of the officers filed out of the room, though Isabella noticed Timmons lingered, as though he might try and eavesdrop on whatever secret meeting the higher-ranking officers were about to hold. She felt insulted that Bryce had never been invited to the council, though she supposed he wasn’t at the base during the formation of the exclusive club.
Isabella listened in shock as the details of their scientific experimentation unfolded over the course of the next five minutes. A tingle of excitement and renewed hope ran through her veins as the meeting came to a close, and she knew what her next course of action needed to be. Even if it brought significant risk to her and Nathan, she needed to leave Naval Station Norfolk as soon as humanly possible.
And she needed to somehow bring Metzger with her.
Twenty-nine
Had Metzger been dense enough to not notice the military’s sudden interest in him before, he certainly knew it when they provided him with his own private quarters. A shack of a building, used for punishment perhaps when the base was fully functional, the tiny facility provided only one window, and one exit. With the window nailed shut, and the door constantly guarded by two uniformed men, Metzger’s chances of escaping notice were nonexistent.
Inside his unofficial prison he possessed a few changes of clothes, a few food rations, and the satellite phone he found during the last Buffalo mission. He wasn’t entirely sure why they let him keep the phone when they wouldn’t let him keep his firearms and sword. Their rationalization about the weapons was that civilians didn’t need weapons as trained military personnel would defend them while they were on the base or working outside of the installation.
Metzger felt he’d lost his sense of purpose because the military didn’t let him work inside or outside of the base. He spent his days stewing, waiting for the next blood draw, or random encounter with someone who might speak with him a moment. He missed his friends, and he wondered if he’d stayed with them if Bryce might have survived a second mission in Buffalo, or avoided going altogether.
He didn’t want to dwell on the infinite number of possible outcomes, but his mind found little else to occupy it.
Now, as night fell across the base, sounds of work fell off and Metzger sat quietly in his bed, wondering what he wanted to do next. Isabella’s communications felt like they took forever to come, especially when he required a response to questions he asked of her.
Feeling despondent, he debated whether to make a run for freedom, or stick around to protect his sister-in-law and nephew from a military that obviously had an agenda. He initially thought the walls meant safety, food, and a barrier from the undead, but the base felt like a prison sentence.
While the door to his residence wasn’t locked, he certainly didn’t feel free to walk about as he pleased. Other civilians were being relocated outside the base as housing became available, and he questioned whether it was to keep them from certain tru
ths, rather than protect them and provide them with a sense or normality.
Even though Virginia was merely an hour past dusk, Metzger considered laying his head down and sleeping to escape reality until the next monotonous morning arrived. He was about to stand to switch off the single functioning light in the room when the door burst open and a familiar face stood at the threshold, openly relieved to see him.
“Colby?” Metzger asked in shock, standing to usher his friend inside and close the door quickly behind him. “How the hell did you get in here?”
“Buster makes a good distraction sometimes,” Sutton said. “Your soldiers love dogs.”
“Shit. You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”
“No,” Sutton said defensively. “Well, not today.”
Metzger paced the floor momentarily, concerned that the military would discover both men and lock them away forever.
“Why are you here? How the hell did you get inside?”
“The security here is a little thin,” Sutton said with a smirk. “And I need your help.”
“My help?” Metzger questioned, a bit surprised anyone required his assistance nowadays.
Sutton shrugged.
“Well, the group needs your help.”
Metzger said nothing, raising an eyebrow because he didn’t picture Sutton going through so much trouble to assist others.
“What’s really going on?”
Sutton sighed heavily.
“Fine. Your girlfriend kicked me out of the group, completely without reason I might add, and, well, you’re my ticket to making amends.”
Metzger rolled his eyes and threw his arms in the air before cupping his face with his hands as he continued to pace the floor in frustration.
“Let me get this straight,” he said, keeping his voice low so he couldn’t be heard outside of the shack, but growling his words. “You and Jillian had a playground fight and you want me to square things up between you?”
“It’s more than that,” Sutton virtually pleaded. “And I thought you’d be happy to see one of us after being cooped up in here.”
The Undead Chronicles (Vol. 2): Darker Days Page 37
