by Justin Bell
Broderick was about to speak, but Davis beat him to it, and answered the question about who was going to say the wrong thing first.
“Step off your motorcycles!” he screamed, his hands bringing the weapon up and around. “We are representatives from the United States Army and this is a quarantine zone!”
From beyond the glowing lights, Broderick thought he saw two of the men look at each other.
“Quarantine zone?” one of the men shouted. “Quarantine from what? The Super Flu you all started?”
“I repeat!” shouted Davis. “Step off your motorcycles! Step into the light! We are armed!”
“I can see that, soldier boy!” the man replied. “See that loud and clear! And as usual, the government talks mighty tough on the right side of automatic weapons!”
“We are not your enemy!” Broderick interjected. “We all want the same thing!”
“Is that a fact?” the man shouted back. “Cause, I want to put some bullets in those two punks layin’ on the ground over there! You gonna help me out with that?”
Davis hesitated, glancing toward Broderick.
“If he’s talking about putting bullets—”
“Then they’re armed,” Broderick finished.
Davis turned back toward the row of motorcycle lights. “Nobody wants any trouble!” he shouted. “We need you to step forward and turn over whatever weapons you might have. As you can see, we are well-armed and we have our orders to maintain this quarantine!”
“You don’t scare us, Army boy!”
“We should! And I was with the Marines, tough guy.”
“I don’t like this,” hissed Provlov. “I can’t see those guys clearly beyond their headlights. They could be packing all sorts of heat for all we know.”
“Be careful,” a voice said from his left, and Broderick turned. A skinny young man was crawling to his feet, hugging the wall of the building behind him, next to where the alley met the vacant lot. Broderick adjusted the heavy bag on his shoulder, nearly forgetting that he was carrying it. He shifted it, letting the collection of items within shift with his motion, metal on metal clattering within.
“Stay away from him!” shouted the voice on the motorcycle. “That boy owes me a pound of flesh!”
“I don’t even know you!” the young man shouted back.
“Enough!” screamed Davis. “That is enough! This is your final warning, do you hear me?” He brought his arms up, shoving his M4 tight to his armpit, his other hand wrapping around the tactical grip near the front barrel.
A scattered clatter of moving metal could be heard beyond the headlights, but nobody could see exactly what was happening.
“Come out into the lights!” Davis reiterated. “Out where we can see you!”
Broderick could hear the men and women around him moving their own weapons into position, and the tension that had been in the air was taut and brittle, about to snap like an overstretched rubber band.
“Everyone calm down!” Broderick shouted. “Nobody needs to get hurt! We are on the same side!”
“Someone shoulda told your little boyfriend that before he and his fat friend killed my boy!”
“That was self-defense!” shouted the larger man who had risen next to his skinnier friend.
Broderick looked over at them and held a hand up to keep them silent.
“Give us those two and we’ll back off and leave well enough alone,” the man on the motorcycle called out. “All we’re after is them.”
“Not happening!” shouted Broderick. He fished his own pistol from his holster and held it low, not wanting to be threatening, but knowing they were already a few steps beyond that.
“I’m telling all of you right now,” Davis yelled, “if you don’t start taking a few steps forward, this is going to get real bad before it gets any better, do you understand me? You are outnumbered and outgunned!”
“This country never ceases to amaze me,” replied the man in shadow. “Drop bombs on the city. Drop diseases. Try to march us into one of your damn death camps, then you sit there and bark at us like we’re the bad guys? This is my city! My home! This is my country, and I ain’t gonna sit here and let you guys tell me what I’m gonna do!”
The movement of the figure behind the headlight told Broderick that he had a weapon, and a large one, and he was starting to bring it up.
“Don’t do that, don’t do it!” screamed Broderick. “Please, this doesn’t have to end this way!”
“Oh it was always gonna end this way!”
Davis didn’t wait. He opened fire. The M4 carbine blasted to life in his hands, a swift series of echoing pops, the barrel jerking in the tight clasp of his fingers. The shadow with the weapon tilted left as the first volley shattered his headlight, sent sparks winging from the curved metal body of his motorcycle and tore down the man standing next to him, driving his silhouetted form back-first to the asphalt ground.
“Open fire, take ‘em out!” screamed the man in shadow, bringing his own weapon up, and suddenly it was firing, too, a semi-automatic, but his finger worked quickly, a staccato series of short bangs from the dark. Broderick scrambled left but looked right just as Corporal Felding took three shots high in the chest, her yellow containment suit shredding apart, blood mixing with torn yellow material.
“No!” he screamed, but the entire alley exploded with ratcheting gunfire. Even as he moved left he brought his pistol up and around, squeezing off several shots toward the figures masked by their motorcycle lights, and just to his right Provlov and Smith moved in, their automatics chattering. Muffled grunts echoed from across the alley, but so did return gunfire, and there was no cover here, nowhere to duck behind or hide. Provlov took a round in the face, his gas mask exploding, his head driving straight backwards, striking the hard ground like an overripe honeydew.
The entire area was alight with muzzle flashes, yellow light streaking across the brick walls of the buildings, the careening whine of bullet ricochets, the pitched squeal of bullets off metal mixed with the cracks of shattered brick. Off in the distance glass windows exploded and Broderick hoped upon hope that no innocents were taking shelter in there. He ducked low and scrambled left, firing wide and blind to his right. Looking ahead, he saw the two men, the skinny one and the larger one moving back toward the alley they had vacated, and then they were lifting upright, pumping their legs, charging forward.
Broderick glanced back, seeing Smith take two shots and scrabble clumsily backwards, disappearing into the yellow fire, swallowed up by the wreckage of the helicopter. Irkus moved up, firing sporadically with his own tactical rifle, and shattered another headlight, then threw another motorcycle rider backwards onto the ground. Broderick stumbled as he moved, landing on his knees, barely catching himself with one flattened palm. Concrete and stone splintered where he knelt, bullets spraying his face with dirt clumps and hot, pointed fragments, and he swung his pistol around firing. An approaching biker took two rounds from his weapon, grunted, and lurched forward, his weapon spilling from his hands.
Broderick tried to pick himself up and spin around, but a set of thick arms wrapped around his left arm and pulled, yanking him off his feet, sending him scrambling backwards, feet tripping, just as more bullets punched into the brickwork where he’d been standing. His fingers clutched at and snatched around the loose canvas strap of the bag, which had fallen to the ground at his feet. As he was dragged out of the path of fire, the bag scraped along the ground behind him.
Swinging his head around he started to yell, but saw the larger of the two innocent men pulling on him, yanking him out of harm’s way.
“That’s a valley of death right there, man, get your butt out!”
“Let me go, I can’t leave my team!”
Already the rattling chatter of weapons fire was slowing to a sparse set of dull cracks.
“Man, your team is gone. Those bike riders are gone, too. Nobody in that alleyway is gonna survive this, man! You look like you’re here to do goo
d work, live so you can keep on doin’ it!”
“Let me go!” Broderick shouted just as a figure came around the building across the way, swinging a weapon around. Clark yanked Broderick back as the pistol fired, knocking chunks from the wall, then Clark brought his own weapon around and he fired a single shot, knocking the other man back around the corner. It was a quick one-two motion, and Broderick, even with his military training, could barely follow it. Then he was being spun around and shoved down the alley as gunfire behind him faded into rattling chatters of nothing.
They all moved in unison, taking scrambling, stumbling steps away from the lowering din of background gunfire. As they reached the opposite end of the long, narrow passage between buildings, the gunfire had halted completely, its echoes still lifting up and fading into the smoke-filled sky.
Broderick took two more loping steps, then halted, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Turning, he pinned his back against the brick work, leaning his head back, the hooded crown resting on the building wall, while underneath the gas mask his eyes closed to keep back the tears.
“All of them,” he whispered to himself. “Dead. All of them.”
Clark bent over at the waist, pinning his palms to his thighs, catching his breath, while Jackson just stood there, his brain not quite processing what had just happened. He glanced up, looking down the long alley toward where the sudden gunfight had erupted, and he could see the floating gun smoke caught in the few remaining intact headlights of the motorcycles. Caught in the backsplash he could see at least three slumped bodies.
“A massacre. That was a massacre.” Broderick stayed leaning up against the wall, his back pressing against the canvas bag strapped over his shoulder. He adjusted and let the bag fall to the ground, barely remembering even picking it up.
“We need to keep moving,” Clark whispered. “We need to get out of the city. Something tells me this isn’t the last time something like this is going to happen tonight.”
Jackson nodded, adjusting his own backpack to slip both shoulders through the straps. The sword, which stuck up through the main zippered pocket, bumped off the back of his head.
Clark was looking up at him through sideways eyes, a crooked smile on his face. “You never did tell me what you plan on doing with that sword, man.”
Jackson shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time?”
Clark stood upright and looked over at Broderick who still remained leaning against the wall, his eyes cast up toward the dark sky.
“Hey, you coming?”
He stayed where he was. Motionless. Expressionless, his breath shifting between synthesized huffs and sucking puffs.
Jackson patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, man. Come with us. We gotta get out of here, and you look like you might have some perspective on what exactly is going on here.”
Broderick looked at him, nodding softly. “Perspective?” he asked. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.” He looked back down the alley, watching the flames reach above the low roofs, his eyes affixed on the motionless bodies cast in the pallor of the pale, white light of the headlights. Smoke filtered through, creating a fog that took on an eerie lake-effect over the corpses.
He didn’t reply verbally, but he drew a deep breath, hooked his fingers around the canvas duffel bag and strode forward, joining Jackson and Clark as they exited the alley, continuing south to parts unknown.
Chapter Eight
They walked in silence, all three of them, none of them talking about the scene they had all witnessed, but certainly all of them were thinking of it. Even with the broken filtration canister, Broderick kept his mask on out of habit more than anything else, though his eyes wandered as they walked. Three times they came upon corpses, and every time they did, they took a long arc around them, sticking close to the buildings, walking in the shadows wherever possible, trying to become one with the environment. The sky and stars were still invisible beyond the thick smoke that seemed to be everywhere, clinging from building to building, draped over the city like a black, funereal gauze, thick and dark.
Broderick thought it was especially strange that they never seemed to run across anyone living. No wanderers, no curiosity seekers, just rows of empty streets, abandoned cars, and beyond the occasional blurt of sirens or low roar of military vehicles in the distance, absolutely no signs of life whatsoever. He adjusted his shoulder strap, tightening up the duffel bag and looked at Jackson walking ahead of them. The young man was thin and apparently fit, walking with long, confident strides, not appearing to be at all winded by their brisk pace. His backpack was plump and stuffed with strangely shaped lumps jutting from the sides and underneath. A long scabbard extended from the zipped up pouch, the wrapped hilt of some kind of Japanese sword extending from the sheath.
Clark looked back at him. “I don’t think we ever got your name.”
“Broderick Schmidt,” he replied, working hard to keep the harsh German edge from his voice. He’d been born here in the United States, but his parents were immigrants from Hamburg, and he’d spent most of his life speaking both German and English. When he did speak English, unless he consciously thought about it, there was a definite accent.
“You from the US?” Clark asked, noticing the slight cadence to his voice.
“Yes,” Broderick replied. “Second generation citizen. Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.”
“United States Marine Corps, myself,” Clark replied. “Fifth Expeditionary Brigade. Discharged almost twenty years ago.” He looked away, shaking his head softly, and Broderick could almost see the wistfulness, even though he was only looking at his thinning, gray hair.
“We had a couple of former Marines on my team,” Broderick said, though his voice trailed off at the end.
“Hey, man,” Clark said, halting his walking and looking over at Broderick. “I’m sorry about your team. That was some messed up stuff back there.”
Broderick stopped as well, his eyes staring out through the gas mask goggles, looking off into the distance at nothing in particular.
“Thank you,” he said finally. “Yes, yes it was.”
“What were you guys working on?” Jackson asked, coming forward to join the conversation.
Broderick looked visibly uneasy. “I work with Team Ten, a multi-branch group of the United States military focused on identifying and mitigating the threat of biological weapons.”
“So this… this was an attack?” Clark asked.
“We don’t know what this was. This is Classified Top Secret stuff. I can’t just spout off.”
“Come on, man,” Clark replied. “Look at this place. Do you really think this top secret crap makes a bit of difference anymore?”
“Who knows?” Broderick replied. “If quarantine is being enacted around the city’s border and our response teams are quick enough—”
“Have you been listening to the news?” Jackson asked. “I spoke to my fiancée earlier. They’re already finding sick people in New Jersey, New Hampshire and New York. Unconfirmed reports say people are dying across the entire United States. If that really is the cause of what’s happening here, then the quarantine is too little too late.”
“If that’s the case, then why aren’t we sick?” Clark asked. “How did we escape this super flu?”
“Okay, it’s not a super flu,” Broderick interjected, his voice tense. “It’s something else entirely.”
The other two men turned to look at him, their faces masks of eager anticipation.
Broderick lowered his head for a moment, drew in a breath, then lifted it again. “We have reason to believe that, yes, this was an attack.”
Clark and Jackson continued looking at him, not responding.
“We analyzed some of the victims and believe this may be a potential genetically engineered designer virus created to attack a certain element of the population.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Clark replied. “I heard of this when I was in the Marines. Back in the 90’s. Ethnic c
leansing. There were rumors of development of what was called back then an ethnic bioweapon which would target only people of a certain ethnic heritage. Is that really what we’re talking about here?”
Broderick shrugged. “Tough to tell for sure. My team was cut off from Fort Detrick, so we didn’t have access to the global database, we had to go by whatever local information we brought with us. But yes, there were genetic similarities with all of the victims that were targeted by this apparent weapon.”
“So how did I escape?” Jackson asked, his voice thin. “I was in a Cessna. A tiny cockpit, with the pilot, who got sick and died right in front of me. His blood was on my hands.”
“My guess? Somehow you’re genetically incompatible. Luck of the draw.”
“What ethnic group was the virus programmed to attack?” Clark asked.
“I don’t have that answer, but I can tell you there were several ethnic groups in that first attack that we saw who were all killed by the airborne toxin.”
“Airborne?” Clark asked. “You said airborne?”
“We’re not sure how long it lives outside of its human host, but it kills its victims quickly, yet still manages to be a strong carrier. With all of the genetic enhancements this weapon has, unfortunately we have little to compare it to.”
“So how are you going to fight it?” Jackson asked. “How are we going to stop it?”
Broderick looked back the way they came, now two miles in their rearview mirror. “Well, my ride out of town hit the ground and caught fire. I need to get back to Fort Detrick eventually. That’s where we’ll have to formulate some kind of plan to battle this thing back.”
“By the time you get back there, this thing could be all over,” Clark whispered.
“We don’t know enough about it yet to make that call,” Broderick replied. “I prefer to work with what we know.”
As they walked, the soldier and scientist looked at a street sign they were passing, narrowing his eyes. “Hey, can we take a left here? We’re near a site of the attack, and I need to check on a loose end.”
