Though she could fantasize about such things, the oppressive heat and the ever-present smell of rotting flesh served as a constant reminder of where she was and that the prospect of ever getting to Denver was probably just a ton of wishful thinking. And as hopeful as she was, the brief messages she had received that were still stored on her iPhone spoke volumes. Chilling texts from friends who were trapped and freaking out about how many of the dead things were walking around their streets. YouTube footage sent to her showing civil unrest, and worst of all the horrible zombie attacks that she could barely watch let alone fully comprehend. Then, just days after the dead began to walk and all of her friends and acquaintances had gone totally silent she received an even more ominous message—her own intuition telling her she was on her own.
Taryn tore her eyes from the useless smart phone and sniffed a pit—ugghhh. Unfortunately the four inches of water left in the five gallon water cooler wasn’t earmarked for sanitation nor improving her olfactory experience. She was resigned to the fact that a simple luxury such as washing her pits would have to wait until she made it out of this scrape alive. Besides, she mused, compared to the dead, her pits smelled like a dozen long stemmed roses.
Ignoring her former boss and his hungry eyes, Taryn low crawled across the office floor in order to get a better look through the terminal windows below. Painted white and splashed with Tar Heel blue, Allegiant Flight 6651 was still nestled next to the gate where it had been since arriving from Las Vegas the Sunday before last, and alongside it, docked to the other gate, sat the red, yellow, and white twin engine from Salt Lake City. The two planes, with a combined manifest of two hundred and eighty-nine people aboard, including crew members, had efficiently delivered infection and death to Grand Junction Regional.
Landing only minutes apart, the jet liners disgorged hundreds of terrified people, a host of them already infected but not yet turned.
Two passengers onboard Flight 6651 from Vegas who had turned while the plane was still airborne succeeded in infecting ten other passengers before finally being subdued.
“The two men were insane or something, biting and clawing at those heroes,” was how a stunned flight attendant had described the incident, hands trembling, as she waited for the Venti Americano that Taryn was sure would only add to her shakes.
Adding to the horrific events that had already unfolded while Allegiant 6651 was still in the air, three of the plane’s passengers, having had succumbed to their horrific bite wounds, expired on the paisley carpet in front of Jet Way A. Within minutes—or seconds—Taryn couldn’t remember, the two men and the blonde girl with pig tails, who couldn’t have been a day over six, had reanimated and were stalking people across the gatehouse floor.
As Taryn watched, with one hand clamped over her mouth holding in a scream and the other frozen in a death grip to the espresso machine’s still gushing steam nozzle, an air marshal who had been on the Las Vegas flight drew his pistol, identified himself, and then issued a few ludicrous orders to the pale monsters.
The marshal, whose permanently dead body still lay where it had fallen amongst his own scattered organs, had failed to discharge his weapon at the newly turned. He had seemingly been frozen by the incomprehensible scene he had just witnessed and his split second hesitation allowed the dead passengers to get their hands on him and drag him to the ground.
Taryn watched on as a man in skinny jeans wearing a painfully trendy felt Pork Pie hat scooped up the air marshal’s black pistol and scampered away holding it with two fingers as if he was supremely terrified of the prospect of protecting his own life with the hated boom stick.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away as the monsters gorged themselves on the marshal’s neck, tearing large hunks away and swallowing them whole.
That the marshal still had a second gun strapped to the outside of his argyle sock next to his right ankle hadn’t been lost on the young barista. In fact she had been eyeing it since that fateful day and it figured prominently into her escape plan—whatever that entailed.
The airport security, EMTs and firefighters who had been stationed inside of the airport around the clock, though thoroughly trained to handle death and chaos, fared no better than Flight 6651’s passengers against the reanimated dead. A few of the former first responders now shambled the concourse downstairs and the jet way and tarmac outside.
As Taryn concentrated on braiding her long jet-black tresses, a fat sweat bead traced the ridge of her nose, stopped against the gold hoop that had been there since her thirteenth birthday, and then took the path of least resistance plummeting onto her knee-length black shorts. The tats on her well defined biceps moved as she worked, the demons and skulls seemingly alive. As she stared at the heat mirages performing their ethereal dance outside on the tarmac an inane thought crossed her mind. Trapped at work during a zombie outbreak and in the middle of the worst heat wave in fifteen years — good going Taryn.
Braided hair now coiled in a bun—so Dickless or Karen or one of the many nameless creatures lurking below would have one less thing to grab onto—Taryn cracked the door and craned her neck to assess the situation below.
Either gunned down by airport security or torn apart and consumed by the lifeless mob, the bullet-riddled bodies and piles of bloody remnants which were formerly human posed a gory minefield Taryn would be forced to navigate.
The yellow Subway sign beckoned from the far end of the terminal. The only food option in the airport, save for the gift store, had been positioned where the building took a slight bend so that passengers waiting to board and people meeting arrivals would have equal access without having to overwork the security personnel by going to and fro. With over two hundred flights daily, ninety percent of them private planes and helicopters, GJT, the moniker given the airport by the Federal Aviation Administration, had been a hopping little place.
A thin trail of saliva escaped the corner of the teen’s parched lips. All she could think about was a veggie foot long on wheat. Earthy tasting bean sprouts, cool ripe tomatoes, crisp green bell peppers, and red onions. No cheese for this vegan please, oil and vinegar... what’s the point? Hell I’ll take three white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies. Better yet six and a forty-four ounce pop.
Taryn, a little voice informed, you don’t drink pop.
“The hell I don’t.” Startled by her own voice, she returned to reality just a little freaked out by the vivid food fantasy. Boys—certainly, she daydreamed about the boys of Denver State often in between making iced Americanos, blended Frappuccino’s and Caramel Macchiatos, all the while feigning amusement in the random musings of the annoying travelers passing through her line.
Slumping, back to the wall, she let her body slide down until she sat on her haunches. “I’m on my way honey. Be ready. I’ll pick you up outside of Chester’s post.” Those were the last words her dad had uttered. She looked at her phone wondering if anything had changed. Was the ringer on? Taryn came to the realization that she was slowly losing it and that her overexuberant wellspring of hope was quickly running dry.
Chapter 11
Outbreak - Day 11
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Waking up and realizing the handwritten note was missing from the table and that Cade was already gone had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.
The paragraph of no more than fifty words had simply asked him to wake her before he deployed. The fact that he hadn’t honored her one tiny request triggered something inside of her, and like a Jack-in-the Box whose jester had been replaced by something demonic, she snapped.
Still shocked and confused, a crestfallen Brook escorted Raven in total silence to Annie’s quarters. As Brook trudged on, embarrassed beyond belief by her actions, she performed a sort of mental inventory—searching for an answer to her outburst.
Instead of acting out in front of her very impressionable soon-to-be twelve-year-old she wished she would have harnessed all of the pe
nt up negative emotion to wield against the dead.
She wondered whether the anger and blind rage she had exhibited had actually stemmed from stuffing the emotions brought on by Carl’s murder, or if it was from the creeping feelings of abandonment that grew stronger each time her man went on one of his missions. In her heart she hoped it was the former and not the latter. The former would be sorted out when she started her mourning process for Carl. Dealing with Cade was going to be interesting. Hell, she thought, one look from his brown eyes and she might forget all about the perceived sleight. However, the one thing she did know with an absolute certainty—the person who had smashed up the Grayson quarters was not really her. And she vowed silently to herself that she would never let it happen again.
Brook’s stomach knotted as she recalled the baffled look on Raven’s face after witnessing her usually calm and collected mom topple one of the unused bunks, which, in domino fashion took another, and then yet another with it. Then, with the covers pulled above her nose and wide-eyed like she had seen the dead, Raven had uttered the question that caused Brook to ask at that terrifying moment, who, or what she had become.
“Mom...” she had whimpered, “is it a mountain or a mole hill?”
***
Motor Pool Mission Staging Area
As was her penchant for punctuality, Brook was at the motor pool half an hour early. She killed the time standing in the middle of the dusty staging area, sweltering in her newly issued ACUs as her brain baked under the Kevlar helmet.
She amused herself by watching Colonel Shrill dart about issuing orders to the thirty or so civilians dressed in colorful shirts, blue jeans and tennis shoes, who were milling around and talking about anything and everything in loud boisterous voices.
To Brook it almost looked like he was herding feral cats; calling the scene in front of her controlled chaos would be way too kind.
Distancing herself from the cacophony, she gravitated towards the half dozen rough looking men clad in the newest multi-cam fatigues. Judging by their tactical helmets which bristled with night vision goggles, and high-tech streamlined comms gear complete with boom mikes—the men had to be Special Forces operators. As she got closer she noticed that although their weapons were M4 carbines similar to hers, theirs had obviously been highly modified to suit each of their personal tastes. All of their rifles were outfitted with scopes and silencers for stealthy longer range engagements as well as vertical fore grips and collapsible stocks making them effective for close quarter battle as well. These were multi-purpose weapons—that much Brook knew. She also knew she wanted one.
Shouldering her plain Jane vanilla M4 she tried to blend in—as well as a five foot tall female amongst a forest of men could.
“You... little lady,” Shrill said singling Brook out. How he knew it was her underneath the bulky helmet and the military garb was a mystery. Surely there were short men on the base. “Find the...” he paused to consult his clipboard, “I’m designating you gunner in the Dakota truck. You’re riding with... a civilian by the name of Wilson.”
Designated gunner, Brook thought, sounds better than burial detail. She envisioned herself, wrapped safely in a plate metal turret with a .50 caliber Ma Deuce blazing away. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the Dakota was one of those exotic gun trucks from the Stan that Cade had once mentioned.
As Shrill’s booming voice continued pairing people and assigning vehicles Brook headed to where the desert tan military vehicles sat cooking in the sun. She didn’t want to waste any time finding her “Dakota” gun truck and the fella named Wilson.
“Brook,” Shrill bellowed.
She stopped and aboutfaced.
The base commander jabbed his finger in the opposite direction.
Confused and slightly embarrassed at being called out by her first name by the baritone voiced colonel, Brook avoided all eye contact, especially with the men dressed much like her, and padded off towards the cluster of liberated U-Haul trucks.
She set course for the nearest truck and the shaded soil next to it. Before she had tromped twenty paces rivulets of sweat had soaked into her fatigues up and down her back, under her arms and worst of all the fabric in direct contact with the tender flesh of her inner thighs and crotch.
“Fuck me...” Brook said at the sight of the U-Haul truck. Looking down on her as if passing silent judgment for her earlier outburst were the likenesses of four former presidents. Originally carved in stone on Mount Rushmore but now just a silk screened image adorning the moving truck’s slab side, the stern faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln hovered above the words, Visit South Dakota, Great Faces—Great Places.
Sadly her mental image of the sexy Dakota truck and its manly gun turret disappeared like a desert heat mirage and the revelation that she was standing in the shade of her real ride dawned on her. Now if I could just find this Wilson guy, she thought.
“You must be Brooklyn Grayson,” said the pup of a kid who had snuck up on her blind side. The twenty-something wore an olive green tee shirt which clung to his lanky frame, its short sleeves from the pits to the cuff stained white with dried sweat. His knee-length tan cargo shorts barely held up by a thick leather belt swished when he moved, and with the unruly mop of flame red hair bursting from under his desert tan boonie hat Brook thought the kid looked like a younger version of Carrot Top. And as she sized up her new traveling partner, she surmised that the niggling sensation that she was experiencing was a portent of things to come and the heat was the least of her worries. In the back of her mind she feared that the day was probably going to get much worse before it got any better.
Chapter 12
Outbreak - Day 11
Castle Rock, Colorado
As Jedi One-One closed the distance to Castle Rock, the two radioactive craters, which resembled twin asteroid strikes on some distant desolate moonscape, crept into view. Ari nudged the stick, feeding the Ghost Hawk incremental course corrections in order to give the hot zone a wide berth. Several hundred thousand Zs had been destroyed by the two strategically placed five kiloton nuclear warheads. The destruction below was incomprehensible; starting at ground zero, nothing was left standing for miles in every direction. And nearly a full day after the Z horde that had surged from Denver was destroyed, fires still raged on the periphery, leaping from house to house, voraciously consuming the fuel rich suburbs and everything standing in its way.
Ari had a hard time trying to fathom the full scope of the destruction. He wondered how many survivors had been holed up, hiding from the dead, when the devices went off. Collateral damage was to be expected in war, but on a scale such as this? Was it all worth it? he asked himself. Ari knew it wasn’t his place to second guess the President, but still he wanted to know why other measures hadn’t been undertaken before they went with the nuclear option. Resigned to the fact that he would never be privy to the Intel that shaped Clay’s final decision, Ari shelved it and focused on flying.
“Desperate times called for desperate measures,” Cade said matter-of-factly and to no one in particular over the onboard comms as he took in the blackened landscape. “Pretty wild that the bombs didn’t even leave a scratch on Castle Rock.”
Ari shook his head. It was as if the Delta operative had read his thoughts. “Cade, my man, that pile of red rock is going to be standing a thousand years after we’re dead and gone.”
Tice shifted in his seat, pointing the camera at Castle Rock and the devastated infrastructure passing below the starboard side. His Nikon stuttered, capturing dozens of images during the low speed flyby. “Just think what it would have looked like down there if we would have used the 150 kiloton yield. We wouldn’t be able to get close enough to see the craters without all of us glowing like fireflies afterward,” the CIA operative and nuclear weapons specialist opined. He had proven himself with the Desantos-led Delta team on both of their previous missions. That he was knowledgeable when it came to all types of nuclear wea
pons and power plants made him a very valuable asset to the team, and the fact that he was a counter terrorism expert who had headed the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) while serving under former President Odero only sweetened the deal.
Directing his question at Tice, Sergeant First Class Lopez asked, “Spooky man... why are you taking all those pictures?”
“I have orders,” Tice stated, keeping his eye glued to the viewfinder as the camera whirred.
“General Gaines?” Lopez asked, furrowing his brow.
“No. Not that high up the chain,” Tice retorted. He knew Ronnie Gaines from running joint ops in the field with the operator, but calling the man General was going to take some getting used to. Gaines was one hell of a SF officer and fully capable of running Delta as well as leading the diminished Spec Ops cadre garrisoned at Fort Kit Carson. Battlefield promotions were to be expected, but rising from Captain to General in one fell swoop was extraordinary. That Mike Desantos had enjoyed the same rapid promotion from President Valerie Clay spoke volumes to the attrition rate suffered by all branches of the United States military since Z day. Cade’s words, uttered only moments ago, recycled through Tice’s mind. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Yes indeed, he thought to himself before answering Lopez’s question. “The President ordered Nash to re-task all available KH-12 satellites to fully recon the CONUS (Continental United States).”
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