The Search For A Cure

by C. Chase Harwood

  Ten miles before their next landing, the pilots moved down to treetop level. Fort Jackson shared its eastern side with the city of Columbia. Per the briefing, the metropolis was a smoldering ruin. Major buildings were scorched and blackened while whole suburban neighborhoods were burned to the ground. Thunderclouds were rolling in and already a light mist fell over parts of the city. The late afternoon sunlight that still broke through the clouds filled the streets with smoky shadows. The air was pungent with the chemical concoction of an immolated modern society. The people in the helicopters were grateful to put their gas masks back on. A population of infected seemed to still roam about. Several Fiends came running out of intact houses and gave hopeless chase to the big birds.

  When the Chinooks crossed the boundary fence at the edge of the fort, all seemed suddenly peaceful. Supposedly, with the personnel evacuated and therefore no healthy people to hunt down and kill, Fort Jackson was an oasis.

  It, and the female It hunted with, watched the big machines fly past the trees in the distance. It was feeling gorged as It sucked marrow out of the picked clean femur that It had just cracked open with the ax that It carried. The female’s face and chest were red with fresh blood and that gave It an erection when It looked at her. There were many Others around them. They all fed on the Fresh Ones that had been in the building with the big machines.

  A few of the Fresh Ones had climbed inside one of the machines and locked the hatches. Lots of Others stood around it, waiting for them to come out. It knew from experience that the Fresh Ones probably wouldn’t. It had waited for five sunsets and sunrises for some Fresh Ones to come out of a locked room until It finally got too hungry and left.

  Normally they would fuck after eating like this, Others joining in as well, but the female that It hunted with nodded at the machines flying past the trees. There would be Fresh Ones in there too. So It followed her, along with some Others. It wasn’t hungry, but It nevertheless felt a strong compulsion to track the new Fresh Ones down.

  Everyone snugged up their chem suits as they came in for the landing. The area was clear of Fiend activity and the troops and scientists leisurely disgorged from the helicopters.

  The scientists stretched and looked around while the Rangers quickly broke into squads with orders to set-up and guard the perimeter as the fuel handlers did their work. The base’s bomb shelters were located adjacent to the landing pads under a series of earth-covered mounds. Captain O’Shea directed Corporal Cavanaugh’s squad to secure one of them and ordered the scientists to follow. When the group reached the first shelter, they all stopped in their tracks. The door wasn’t sealed. Five Fiends lay dead outside, their twisted and contorted bodies showing signs of the nerve gas poisoning. The door was covered in bloody handprints. Cavanaugh radioed O’Shea .

  The Captain touched his mic, “What do you see Corporal?”

  “I see Deadheads, sir, and an open door that they were trying to force.”

  Susan said to Cavanaugh, “Tell him that there may be survivors holed up inside. Perhaps they opened the door when they didn’t hear any more noise from the infected.”

  “I’ll let you tell him yourself.” He nodded over her shoulder and they all watched O’Shea and Specialist Melman jog over to their position.

  Susan walked quickly toward the officer. Her voice sounded hollow through the Tychem suit. “Captain O’Shea, there could be survivors here.”

  O’Shea pointed out cameras at the entrance and a periscope sticking out of the top of each mound, “Each of these shelters is equipped with multiple ways to observe the outside, including air quality sensors. If they opened the door, they didn’t know how to use these things.” He stopped next to Cavanaugh, “You try the door yet?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  O’Shea turned to the scientists, “CDC stays back one hundred feet. Specialist, standby with them.”

  The scientists moved back with Melman as Cavanaugh directed private Deeter to gently push the door open. Deeter got it to move about six inches before meeting an obstruction. “Sir, we have at least one body up against the door.”

  With some effort, two other squad members put their shoulders into it and got the door to open wider.

  Private Peabody turned with a crack in his voice, “I count three. One appears to be bitten on the face, sir. All male, all appear to have died by Novichok contact. And, sir… they don’t have any clothes on.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The dead people on the other side of the door are naked.”

  O’Shea observed that the intercom had been pried out of the wall. Bloody fingerprints told the tale of a frustrated Fiend who must have heard a voice and wanted to get to its owner on the other side of the box. He poked his head inside. The lights were on. A staircase led down deep into the ground. The victims at the top of the stairs were indeed without clothes. They appeared malnourished with markings on their wrists as though they had been manacled.

  He yelled down as best he could through his gas mask while two soldiers pointed their weapons down the stairs, “Hello? Do we have survivors down there?”

  There was no answer.

  They pushed the bodies to make way for the door, while two soldiers continued to cover the stairs.

  Susan stepped up to O’Shea. “I assume Captain that you’re going to go down to investigate. We can’t just ignore survivors if they are right under our feet.”

  “I thought I asked you to stay back one hundred feet, ma’am.”

  “I asked you a question, Captain.”

  “And I’m thinking about the answer.”

  Susan looked at him expectantly.

  “Doctor Chancellor, we have a very specific mission… but I don’t have to remind you of that. It’s not a humanitarian one.”

  “Actually, we are on the ultimate humanitarian mission, but that’s just semantics. We have a mission as humans to try to guarantee the survival of our species in every way. I’m not suggesting that we take anyone with us and I know there is no possibility of rescue right now, but there may be people down there who need aid and/or medical attention, as well as guidance as to how to best make use of these shelters. Particularly if other healthy people should find refuge here.”

  O’Shea thought about this for a moment then said, “One of the people on the other side of the door had been bitten in the face. That would suggest to me that there’s a pretty good chance that the only people down there are infected people. I cannot and will not risk any of us in an effort to find out. We’ll post a guard with the door open. If a healthy person walks out, we know what we’ve got.”

  “If a healthy person walks out that door, they are likely to come into contact with nerve agent and die.”

  O’Shea smiled at Susan, “Then we’ll leave a note several steps down. There is no gas in the air, so they will be fine if they see the note and call up.”

  She thought about this solution and decided it was the best she could negotiate. “All right. I guess that will do.” She rejoined her team while the Rangers continued to secure the area.

  The light mist that had greeted their landing turned into a heavy rain as a loud clap of thunder shook the ground. With the Chinooks fueled up, Operation Henhouse moved into an unoccupied shelter. Jones’ unlucky squad drew the short straw and was left outside to monitor the open shelter and also keep watch for other activity.

  The stairs leading down into the bunker were long and narrow. They turned back on themselves repeatedly and descended a couple of hundred feet. Cowboy Johnston took off his gas mask and everyone else followed suit.

  Susan commented, “Any voice calling from the surface would have little chance of reaching down here.”

  Captain O’Shea chose to ignore this.

  The final landing opened to a foyer of sorts, which led to another door. They opened this one and a body heat sensor turned on the lights, revealing a large room with several other doors and corridors leading off of it. The main room appeared to be set up as
a community lounge and dining area. It had some of the basic comforts of home, but in an efficient military way.

  Tran made an aside to Aaron, “No elevators. Must’ve built this place in the fifties. Before the American’s with Disabilities Act.”

  Aaron, always the contrarian as well as literalist shrugged, “I’m sure there are handicapped-friendly shelters.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  PRISONERS

  Maine in late spring/early summer could tease a traveler into thinking it might be a warm day, only to stay cool from dawn ‘til dusk. Jon awoke from a fitful, semi-lucid sleep feeling cold and stiff on a threadbare canvas cot. The thin blanket surrounding him was nearly useless. Pulling it up tight around his neck, he was reminded that he'd spent the bulk of the night shivering, neither awake enough to fully acknowledge it nor asleep enough to be free from it. His fellow power station prisoners were in various states of wakefulness, some already up, others still snoozing away. With little to do but languish in steady fear, there wasn’t much reason to rise and shine.

  He looked over at the cot to his right; the old woman, who had been exhibiting dementia the day before, lay with her mouth agape, her eyes fixed on oblivion. His instinct was to count it a blessing, and he sent a kind thought out to the universe in respect for her soul. He turned over and looked at Nikki who lay on the cot to his left. She was still asleep, her blanket pulled up to her chin. She had curled herself into a fetal position. Her closed eyes and open mouth gave her features a childlike quality. As he admired her sharp cheekbones, he felt an unexpected tug in his heart and his body warmed with increased blood flow. Someone sneezed and she woke. She focused on him briefly and then rolled over on her other side. He could smell fire and slowly sat up to scan the area around him. Will and a few others had a small campfire going, heating a pot of coffee. He hadn’t had coffee in weeks. The part of his brain that had long ago become addicted to it flashed awake. He stood up stiffly, kept the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and shuffled over to the group huddled around the small blaze.

  Will said with misplaced cheer, “Good morning, Mr. Washington. Pour you a cup?”

  “Thank you.” He nodded back toward the cots. “The old woman’s dead.”

  “Yes, we saw that. We’ll let the others sleep as long as they can and then we’ll alert the guards. Better to let folks enjoy as much slumber as they can get.”

  A man wearing blue coveralls reached out to Jon and offered his hand. “David Miller, Mr. Washington. Own the Irving Gas in town. I’m familiar with your writing. We kept several papers at my station. I thought your work was really good. Very helpful.”

  Another man, Loren Haymaker, tall and skinny with a large Adam’s apple, nodded at the dead woman, “They like to burn’em quick as possible. Major’s afraid the smell, if we let ’em rot, will attract the infected.”

  Jon said, “Major’s an idiot. The infected are coming, rotting bodies or not. Burning them will only send up a smoke signal.”

  A bookish looking man in tweeds said, "Perhaps, but burning the bodies insures against other infections." He held out a hand. “Mr. Washington, I’m also familiar with your work. I'm Doctor Paul Smith. I’m a professor and doctor of sociology at Bowdoin.” He shook Jon’s hand. “May I say that your reporting from the front was remarkable? You offered information that the authorities seemed incapable or unwilling to provide. Your stories have, I’m quite certain, saved countless lives and gave the ones whose instinct it was to flee early a chance for survival.”

  “Thanks. Nice to meet you, Professor.”

  Smith continued, “I should say that I am somewhat of a reporter as well. I and several of my colleagues from Emerson Medical School in Atlanta took it upon ourselves to study the Cain’s phenomenon directly. We felt at the time that we weren’t getting all the facts. I mean, who in their right mind believed all of that hype? Cannibalism and whatnot. The hospital had several subjects from which to study. We kept our specimens in cages.” He looked at his surroundings. “And I suspect that I will ironically perish in this one… but I digress. If you don’t mind my saying, despite the precautions taken by our government and its feeble attempts to educate us, our path of action as a society to the threat of this plague has been remarkably imprudent. It is our continued ignorance that has led us to this preposterous situation, leaning back on our militaristic heels, when the solution is simple enough.”

  “How is that?”

  “Feed them. Feed the infected. As long as we kept them fed, the aggression that the victims showed toward my colleagues and me was reduced considerably. God forbid we do the obvious. As it is, Major Deighton’s idiocy is inconsequential. His is just the first wave in a pointless banzai charge to the death. It is a mentality that we cannot seem to outgrow as a society, and it will doom us all.”

  Jon pondered this statement trying to think of a way to take the man seriously and then finally gave up. “Well, again, thank you for the kind words about my reporting.” He turned to Will, “Thanks for the coffee. I think I’ll look around and see if I can find the weaknesses in our jail.”

  “But, Mr. Washington. I haven’t finished,” called Smith.

  Jon waved his arm at the man while keeping his head turned away. The gesture said I hear you but don’t want to hear more. He aimed for the port-a-john, left his coffee outside and entered to take care of his morning’s full bladder. When he stepped back out, he found Nikki drinking his coffee and waiting her turn.

  She handed him the cup and said, “Back out in a sec.”

  A thick fog was rolling in off the lake and a light breeze blew the mist around, occasionally obscuring the power plant. Nikki stepped back out to find Jon observing the power lines that came down from their towers to the transformers inside the cage.

  “How’d you sleep?” he asked.

  “As well as you. I expected to be overrun by crazed killers at any moment. Didn’t help that that backhoe was running all night. Looks like they finished their trench.” Jon took that in and then let his gaze shift back to the power lines. They were an obvious way to climb out. A man could walk on one of the thick cables while holding onto another one above his head. The trouble was, if he managed to make it to the first tower, he had to continue the tightrope walk right over the power plant. If he made it that far, there was a bigger tower and then a long span out over the lake to the next one anchored on a small island. After that the towers continued north as far as the eye could see.

  Nikki said, “We wouldn’t make it past the top of the cage before getting shot.”

  Jon finished his coffee. “Maybe in the dark.”

  “Maybe.” Nikki stomped her feet and shivered, “Damn chilly.”

  Jon found himself unconsciously putting his arm around her shoulders. Nikki gently shrugged him off.

  “Sorry. Just trying to get warm.”

  She stomped her feet again and then leaned into him. “Just for warmth.”

  She felt good under his arm and he tried to ignore it, tried to stay casual, saying, “Night or not, when they come, and it looks like they’re going to get in, we climb out of here. If we get shot, it beats the alternative.”

  Will stepped over to them rubbing cramps out of his lower back. “We’ve all talked about that route. You’re probably surprised that we haven’t just climbed out of here.”

  Nikki said, “We understand why.”

  “They shot Bill O’Reilly. He was the first guy they stuck in here. It wasn’t but an hour after the electricity finally died before he tried to climb out. Deighton let him make it almost to the tower before he had that son-of-a-bitch sergeant of his shoot him. Quite the marksman, the Sergeant - got him through both his hands. Bill fell to his death. It was sport for Deighton. Most of the rest of us in here now? We’re the folks that protested that killing.”

  Jon asked, “What did O’Reilly do to get in here?”

  “He was Deighton’s commanding officer. Deighton and the few real soldiers here are mutineers. O’Reill
y was trying to evacuate the town per orders. Deighton called him an unpatriotic fool and arrested him for supposed ‘dereliction of duty’. Most of the other folks who are working with the major are either local survivalist types, ultra paranoid, or they’re just scared and confused. There’s people in this town that have never been outside it. Others are just stragglers trying to stay ahead of the onslaught. They got caught up in this and don’t want to end up in the cage like us.”

  “So what did you do in this town, Will?” asked Nikki.

  “I'm the mayor.”

  The trench was U shaped with both ends stopping at the edge of the lake so the power plant would be surrounded with water. Two temporary dams had held the water back until the trench was done. One of the soldiers who had been digging postholes the day before yelled out an all clear and then began to hit part of a dam with a sledgehammer. The water gushed in, filling the trench and making it a moat. Between the moat, the berm, the fence, the minefield and the power plant, Deighton’s people had their castle.

  Two hours after that, the residents began to move in. The only way to reach the castle was from the lakeside via a few canoes and rowboats. Jon and Nikki had to admit that it was a formidable fortress. They weren’t so sure it did much to start Taking Back America, but it did create a sense of control in an otherwise chaotic world. Their cage was on the far side of all of this, suddenly separate and out in the open.

  The detainees stood in their prison and made eye contact with the new residents as they streamed into the castle. Several people seemed to question why there were people being left outside. One woman could be heard yelling, “But that’s Will. That’s Will Parker.” Before she could say more, she was physically shoved into the windowless building.