End Time

by Daniel Greene

  That wasn’t his favorite command to receive. He tensely eyed the soldiers with bloodshot eyes. Helmets and gas masks covered their faces. If he could see their eyes he would stare right into them, seeing who would turn away first like a dog in the wild. Flicking a lever, he let the hydraulics depressurize, bringing the mover closer to the ground. Even if he thought he could run through the barricade, those .50s would have eaten through the mover, turning everyone into red mush.

  Mauser turned in his chair and addressed his fellow Lunchbox contents: “We’ve arrived at a place of refuge. Follow the soldiers’ commands and we’ll be okay.”

  They stared at their new leader with dark weary eyes, scared and unconvinced.

  “It’ll be okay,” he assured them, not feeling very confident. Everyone watched him as he stood up. “Follow me or stay here, but I’m going down there,” he stated, pointing.

  Hopping down, he held his hands high. Mauser knew the drill. Always look for the hands. It’s hard for someone to hurt you when you can see his or her hands.

  He knelt down, placing his hands on his head. For better or for worse, we’re here. A sign that read Mount Eden FEMA Emergency Operations Facility stood nearby. He hoped it was for the better, as a soldier wearing a gas mask pointed an M4 carbine in his face.

  “Are you sick?” he screamed at Mauser.

  The sound of bile splattering the pavement made him cringe.

  Fuck.

  STEELE

  Fairfax, VA

  Shadows labored along the asphalt, illuminated by a streetlamp that flickered on the corner. From the second story it was the easiest way to watch the ragtag mob of bloodied, battered and disease infected people below.

  The streetlamp faltered again, fighting to stay aglow. After a meek struggle to stay lit, it sputtered out, allowing the darkness to prevail. Steele could hardly see the bodies of his puppet-like former neighbors who were mere shades in the foreboding night. He let the bed sheet slide slowly back into place. For three days, he had done the same thing: sat and waited in the dark. Weariness washed over him becoming a permanent fixture of his physical state.

  Steele patted his gear down. It had become a nasty habit, but he couldn’t help it. The stress was wearing him thin, not to mention the fact that he was feeling a bit thin around the waist. As if to affirm that he was hungry, his stomach grumbled in complaint.

  His nervous ritual would start by tapping the handle of his handgun, feeling the coarse sandpaper-like grip tape around the handle. Then he would feel for the mags he wore at his waist and run a lone finger down the head of his tactical tomahawk, a gift from a buddy who was in Afghanistan. It made an excellent addition to his combat kit as a close-quarters striking weapon.

  The ritual would have been longer had he worn his tactical vest, which lay nearby covered with thirty round magazines, extra magazines for his SIG P226 and a tactical trauma pack. Alongside it was his AR-15 lightweight battle carbine, which he never let out of his sight. Gwen had the foresight to pilfer it from their ravaged townhouse. It had red dot sight, swivel swing, fore grip, iron sights and a tactical light offset on the rail. I wonder if deep down Mauser knew that I would need it, or if I was just lucky he overlooked it. Either way he was thankful for the long gun.

  He peeked out the window again, trying to get an infected count using a single beam from the moon. Lights would have been nice, but he didn't want to hurt his night vision, and more importantly did not want to draw attention to the townhouse.

  Forty. That was a dozen more than yesterday. The exact number he counted had been thirty-seven, but he assumed some were hidden or stuck somewhere out in the brush, in cars, or in the townhouses.

  Everyday more and more of the infected reared their ugly heads. It was a bad omen. First, he didn’t want to have to fight more than a few of them at a time. Second, if they wanted to escape, their window of opportunity closed with each new monster that roamed below.

  He wanted to snicker at their stupidity, but that would lessen the severity of the situation and the lethality of the assailants. The way they would get hung up in bushes and trees or stuck against each other in doorways was idiotic. But he couldn’t bring himself to laugh. As stupid as they were, they never rested. And they were relentless when they found someone to eat, suddenly moving with speed and purpose. They don’t have half a brain between them and they are beating us. They are more than beating us; they are driving us into extinction. Not just us, life itself is under assault. Shit, not even the neighborhood squirrels are safe.

  The day before he had silently cheered on a squirrel with no tail that he had nicknamed ‘Stump’ as a couple of the infected clumsily tried to catch it. He had to restrain himself from laughing out loud when one of the wretches reached out, lost his balance and fell face first into the pavement leaving part of his scalp on the concrete. Steele could almost have shouted for joy, that bastard. Stump had made one final dodge before scampering up a good-sized maple tree. The dead stared upward for a while, waiting for it to come down. In the silence of the townhouse, Steele had heard it mocking their foiled attack by chattering away from the safety of a branch. Not so dissimilar to Steele sitting up in the house. Except Steele didn’t have the balls to mock them. Not like Stump. Eventually they lost interest and moved toward the next victim.

  Lucky for him, they hadn’t found his hiding spot. Steele could handle a small group of infected with his long gun, but questioned his capabilities for a larger group. Even if he could handle small groups of infected in killing zones, more would keep coming and eventually he would be overrun. This made stealth a much more palatable option.

  Impatiently, he sat upstairs, waiting for a military unit or government agency to clear out his neighborhood. He hated waiting. Action was his mantra. He liked to be doing. Any kind of action was better than nothing. He read on his phone that elements of the Virginia National Guard and Maryland National Guard had been called in to help contain the chaos in Washington D.C., but it didn’t seem to be going very well. He supposed that it was too little too late. Infected people who hadn’t turned yet, had fled the city in droves during the initial outbreak Gwen had been caught up in.

  Now it was more about preventing the horde from leaving D.C. in one giant mass, and the military was apparently on the losing side of that battle as well. A host of soldiers in ACUs with awkward gaits marched alongside civilians. One big fucking happy family. An infected soldier crossed the front lawn of Mr. Wilson’s place, black blood covering the front of his uniform. It didn’t seem as though they were getting the upper hand.

  As if the outside situation wasn’t bad enough, the other survivors were driving him crazy, adding to his anxiety. Lindsay seemed incapable of performing even the most menial of tasks, such as emptying the piss bucket out in the enclosed backyard. She also complained incessantly about the quality of the food.

  Meanwhile, Ahmed seemed to undermine him at every turn. And Steele knew why; he wasn’t a dimwit. It was clear that Ahmed had affections for Gwen and would do anything to wrestle her attention away from Steele. What a douche. The world is ending, and all this meatball can think about is trying to steal my girl.

  Ahmed should hook up with Lindsay, he thought. She is cute and single, or at least she is probably single by now. To make matters worse, Gwen tolerated the man’s lustful stares and questioning glances, as if Steele wasn’t in the same damn room.

  Just the day before, Steele had asked Ahmed to take a watch from the front bedroom window, and the guy had flat out ignored him until Gwen asked him to do it. They had some unspoken bond that Steele didn’t understand.

  Gwen had mentioned something about him saving her life, but that was no reason to outright ignore somebody, especially when their safety was at stake. After all, I am a trained counterterrorism professional. I deserve a little respect.

  He lightly lifted the sheet, returning to his obsession with watching the dark street below. Those dummies were still milling around out there. If the bottom f
loor had been barricaded better and I had more ammo, I could just sit up here sniping those suckers down.

  Gwen rolled over in bed rustling underneath the comforter. “Baby, come to bed. If they try to get in, we’ll hear them,” she whispered.

  “No,” he replied quietly. I want to know it before they make it to the front door. He motioned her up, gesturing for her to sit on the side of the bed with his hand.

  “What is it?” she asked, her eyes suddenly wide in the dark.

  “Everything’s okay, but we can’t stay here. It’s only a matter of time before one of those stenches below catches wind of us, and a bunch of them break in here and tear us up.”

  “Jeez, I thought something was happening.”

  “No, but we should leave soon.”

  “I know. But where would we go?”

  “Well, I was thinking,” he said, taking her hand. “Remember when I went to a FEMA disaster response exercise at a secret facility?”

  “Yeah, vaguely,” she murmured.

  “Well, it’s called Mount Eden and it is up on a mountain not too far from here. It’s probably twenty to thirty miles. We could probably hide up there and wait this out. I doubt there would be many infected there.”

  She looked at him clearly thinking. “That sounds like a good idea. Lindsay’s Jeep should be just around the corner. We could use that.”

  Steele smiled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. I’ll check it out in the morning.”

  He brought her in close and kissed her deeply. She smelled of ordinary soap. Her beauty supplies were left at their home, not a priority now, but she still managed to smell amazing to Steele. The fire between them that smoldered beneath the surface flared bright. He hoped they didn’t make too much noise as they enjoyed each other’s bodies. They didn’t want to make any unwanted guests aware of their presence, but part of him hoped that Ahmed, at least, heard her moans of pleasure.

  JOSEPH

  Mount Eden Emergency Operations Facility, VA

  Work on a cure with Dr. Williams had hit a dead end. The virus mutated at such a high rate within the DNA code of the host’s cells, that little working knowledge could be acquired from their research. Isolation of the virus was near impossible, and when the team was successful the host cells were destroyed or had mutated beyond significance. It was as if armies of microbiological hijackers stole and infected pure human DNA with every beat of the host’s heart. Millions of infected cells became billions in moments. This ruled out a common flu type treatment that blocked the virus within the human penetrated cells from leaving and infecting other cells. The virus replicated too fast to effectively use reverse RNA transcription, targeting the viral proteins or introducing antisense molecules, messenger RNA that attach themselves to the virus rendering it ineffective.

  Working on such a doomed project, was crushing his will to go on. Everything was pointing to the eradication of mankind. The only microbial ounce of hope came from following up with his former classmate from Chicago.

  He checked and rechecked his inbox every free moment he had. The refresh bar slowly inched its way across the screen as it updated, as if the computer were mocking him. The combination of government internet paired with ancient computers was slowly driving him insane.

  Joseph still hadn’t received a response. My friend is probably dead. All of this work was for nothing if they couldn’t get a sample of the original virus from patient zero.

  The medical research team had been working with the data and blood samples Joseph had collected, but the data wasn’t close enough to the original virus, making their manipulation of it less than optimal and extremely slow. There was still much that could be learned from studying his data from the DRC, but greater strides could have been made faster had they been able to pinpoint the original host with its original mutations.

  Odds were that the original host was wandering some city with the rest of his infected friends feeding on the living or, worse still, decomposing with a bullet in his head from some overzealous redneck neighbor. This was an abysmal thought for Joseph. He realized the rednecks probably thought the zombie apocalypse was a bit of fun, giving them free reign to use all their guns and survival gear on the population at hand.

  With the cities in the process of being overrun, who would be left to run the country or to inherit the Earth for that matter? Overall wearing denizens from the countryside? Billy Bob and Cindy Lou? They might be the only people who survived for any length of time, isolated from large populations. Joseph tried to push the thought of an America run by rural folk, banjos in one hand and shotguns in the other, out of his head.

  Justifying a grant for research would be all but impossible with those folks and their guns in charge. I understand the necessity for law enforcement and for the military to have guns, but why did everyone in the country seem to have them? Now that they need them to survive, I guess that issue has been put to bed. Joseph needed to put a stop to the virus or no one would get to enjoy being the sole presiders over the nation.

  Back to the problem. How can we ever identify the original viral host in a sea of infected? We have a chance if the host lives in relative isolation outside a city, but nothing matters if we don’t know who to look for.

  Joseph still thought he was onto something with his link to Chicago, although he knew there was only a slim chance it would lead anywhere. He needed to find out more about the Chicago Monkeypox outbreak before it was too late. Information was coming in too haphazardly.

  Both Paris and London were in the process of being overrun, and most of Africa had gone dark. There hadn’t been much hope for saving the African continent, anyway. According to Representative Baker, it didn’t take much to topple governments that were already on shaky ground. Rep. Baker was totally convinced that this would be over in a few weeks once the U.S. military forces were fully mobilized. He told Joseph that the Pentagon had survived the initial D.C. collapse and that the President had been moved to an ‘even more secure’ facility farther west. Joseph fired off another email to his former classmate’s personal email address. If I’m lucky, he is still alive somewhere, and will respond.

  His head pounded. The yellow industrial lights seemed to smother Joseph. The combination of the fake light and the glow of the computer screen added to the claustrophobic feeling from living underground, all seemed to make it worse. The only cure seemed to be fresh air from above ground. He had spent too much time inside the lab for the day.

  He flashed his badge wherever he needed to in order to leave the Bottomside. He stepped into the elevator, which had only two buttons: floor zero and floor minus one. He punched zero. The elevator rattled as it made the four-story ride to the surface.

  He stepped out of his steel encasing into a large antechamber that resembled the lobby of a hotel. A couple of soldiers sat behind a desk and a couple more stood nearby, their rifles slung leisurely downward. He nodded to the soldiers behind the desk awaiting his escort. No one moved to shadow him. No escort today? As much as he disliked being babysat, it was kind of nice to have someone to talk to.

  “Is Pvt. Gordon around? He’s my usual escort.”

  The soldier’s face darkened.

  “Don’t know him. No more escorts unless specifically sanctioned.”

  Joseph stood for a moment dumbfounded. It struck him that the Private’s absence could mean the man was dead. Nah, he’s just off the clock. Alone, he stepped outside.

  The sudden nighttime breeze burrowed into his skin. It invigorated him. It awakened him. He breathed the cool air in deeply. It was fresh, clean, unspoiled mountain air, and it made him feel human again. He resisted the primal urge to howl at the moon as he tipped his head backwards toward the sky.

  The night sky appeared fuller on the mountaintop. It was as though he were somehow closer to the stars; tiny twinkling pinpricks of heaven peering down on the world. He closed his eyes, breathing in the peace, only to have his tranquility shattered by the thudding of helicopter blades.
The blades cut the solitude with each swirl. Huge military floodlights, placed in intervals around the facility, defiled his stargazing. The occasional crack of a sniper rifle from the guard towers sounded off, picking off one of the infected from an elevated position. It sickeningly reminded him of a prison or, worse, a World War Two concentration camp, except here the guards looked outward. While seemingly one with nature, humans were indisputably separate. Humans were born of nature, but reveled in destroying it for the ‘greater good.’ He tried to remember that his solace came from this camp, while he merely existed in the bunker below.

  He felt relatively safe at the Mount Eden facility; safer than those on the other side of the fence, at least. He walked aimlessly around a small shantytown of D.C. citizens who had found the place as a safe haven. Hands in his pockets, he stood and people-watched. He took some comfort in knowing that others were near. Tents had been set up for the survivors as well as portable bathing and lavatory facilities that looked like mobile homes.

  This isn’t going to work too well in the winter. Three more months and these people would be cold. Very cold.

  Two men shouldered past him in a hurry, startling him.

  “Watch it, buddy,” one of them said as he passed.

  The doctor glanced back. They were vaguely familiar: a very large man along with a shorter, reddish-haired man in tactical gear. Joseph supposed anyone would seem shorter next to the gigantic man.

  “Excuse me. Do I know you?” he called after them, yearning for a bit of human interaction.

  The shorter of the two turned around. “What do you want?” Recognition lit up in the man’s face. He crossed his tattooed arms. “Dr. Jackowski, glad to see you made it.” His comment oozed with venom.

  Joseph tried to ignore the stabbing comment and answered: “Agent Mauser, I believe, and Agent Thorfinson. It’s a pleasure seeing you both. Are Agents Steele and Wheeler here as well?” He would never forget the agents from the Kinshasa flight.