by John O'Brien
“Captain Walker, would you please repeat what you just said?” Leonard says into the radio. The words come back just as before.
“Would you please describe these night runners as you call them?” Leonard says.
“They can only operate at night or in darkness, as I mentioned, and they hide out in darkened buildings during the day. They have a paler skin than normal with darker blotches haphazardly spread. They have great night vision, can seemingly hear better than us, are faster, more agile, and stronger. And there’s one other thing you might want to be seated for, we are a source of their food.”
Chief Petty Officer Vance Krandle listens to the words transmitted over the tinny speaker by his head. The words coming out send shivers down his back. He thinks back to his previous mission, the images of Gold Team being overrun and going down under a horde of pale skin people without weapons. The remembered images flash through his mind like a movie on fast forward. The recalled screeches and screams from the buildings and jungle cause goose bumps to sprout on his arms and the hair on his neck to rise. The memory of their chase through the jungle with the hordes on their tail. He remembers the look of disdain Captain Leonard had given him when he debriefed but he knows what he saw and he heard.
Every night he lay in his bunk searching for a different answer, for a more plausible one, but the images were too real. Hearing words that validate his memories is both comforting and shocking. There is a degree of comfort knowing he hasn’t lost it but the shock that what he saw is happening, or happened, on a world-wide basis is almost too much. They lost a good team and his leader to this. His jaw hangs open with the realization that there may be less than one percent of the population left and these things he encountered are roaming across the world he once knew. The fact that they could no longer be at the top of the food chain leaves him shaken.
“Chief Krandle,” he hears, shaking himself out of the reverie the news created.
“Aye, sir,” he responds automatically.
“Do these… things… sound like what you encountered?” Captain Leonard asks him.
“Aye, sir, they could be the same. At least the description matches,” he answers.
“Did you see these things actually start eating Gold Team?” Leonard asks, looking him in the eye with deadly earnest.
“Sir, it happened so quick that I can’t be sure but it did appear that way,” Krandle replies.
“Very well, Chief, you’re dismissed,” Leonard says.
“Aye, sir,” Krandle responds and turns to go.
“Chief,” Leonard says as he is at the door. Krandle turns.
“This is not to be discussed with anyone,” Leonard says.
“Aye, sir,” he replies.
“Oh, and Chief, thank you,” Leonard says.
“For what, sir?”
“For bringing your team back safely,” Leonard says.
“Thank you, sir.”
Chief Krandle heads back to the crew mess where he was downing some of the worst coffee he has ever had with the rest of his team. Ducking through hatches which always seemed too small for his size, he thinks about the ramifications of what he just heard. Most of humankind gone? Less than one percent remaining? Most everyone he ever knew gone? What does this mean for him and his team? Of any of them? And who was Leonard talking to? He heard the name Captain Walker but was this another Navy Captain or someone else in a different branch?How much of the military is left? These questions swarm through his stunned mind. There is little consolation that he was correct in what he saw. He wishes that he was wrong. No answers come to him as he ponders the questions one after the other. Except one. He wants off this sub as soon as possible. He never liked being on them. They are too claustrophobic for him. If there is another operating military unit, he and his team will join them. His falling under Captain Leonard’s command ends the moment his boots touch the shore.
“What was that all about?” His assistant team leader asks as he steps through the hatch to the crew mess.
“Nothing. The Captain had a question,” Krandle answers.
“When are we getting out of this steel coffin?” His point man asks.
“I don’t know. This isn’t the week the Captain sees fit to brief me on his decisions,” Krandle replies. “But if I had my say on the matter, we’d have left fifteen minutes ago.”
Captain Leonard stands in the cramped radio room, although it’s not as bad as it was when CPO Krandle practically filled the room on his own. The possibility of the radio communication being a practical joke left his mind the moment Krandle verified what was said by what he’d witnessed. To Leonard’s mind, that leaves very little else to explain what has happened. Either he accepts what he has heard from two different sources, trusted or not, or he has to give into a large conspiracy. And that seems even more far-fetched than anything else.
He stares at the mic in his hand and, for one of the first times in his life, feels at a loss for words. With his communications officer standing by his shoulder, indecision grips him. Should he brief his officers and come up with a solution or trust this Captain Walker. He feels like surfacing the boat and standing on the deck looking over the shoreline, waiting for an answer to float across the gentle waves. He can always turn around, take his boat back out, and lose himself under the sea. But if this is some elaborate ruse, he could lose command of his vessel and his career will swirl down the drain. He makes his decision.
“Captain Walker, this is Captain Raymond Leonard, commander of the Santa Fe. What exactly did you mean when you said we are their food source?”
“Captain Walker, would you please repeat what you just said?” I hear and repeat what I told them. I’m assuming that whoever I was talking to had someone else listen in.
“Would you please describe these night runners as you call them?” The voice says after giving them the cliff notes version again.
“They can only operate at night or in darkness as I mentioned and hide out in darkened buildings. They have a paler skin than normal with darker blotches haphazardly spread. They have great night vision, can seemingly hear better, are faster, more agile, and stronger. And there’s one other thing you might want to be seated for, we are a source of their food,” I tell them.
There is a significant pause on the other end. I can only imagine how startled they must be feeling. Well, startled is an understatement. I’m not even sure I would believe what I was hearing if I were them. The squelch breaks again.
“Captain Walker, this is Captain Raymond Leonard, commander of the Santa Fe. What exactly did you mean when you said we are their food source?”
“Yeah, Captain Leonard, you’re really going to want to be sitting for this one. Like I mentioned, we are one of their food sources. They will attack on sight and eat anyone they can. They infest darkened buildings during the day and come out at night. I would avoid going into any building at any time,” I answer. “Where are you located Captain?”
“Captain Walker, I’ll determine to what extent I send my men and women into buildings,” I hear Leonard reply. Another pause ensues. “We are submerged in the strait just outside of Bangor. Where are you located, Captain?”
“We should meet then, Captain. We are based down in Olympia, approximately seventy miles south,” I answer. “We can drive up in the morning and meet you at the docks.”
“That’s a little over an hour. What about driving up and meeting us now?” Leonard asks.
“Captain, we aren’t about to leave and chance being caught out after dark. We’ll leave in the morning. I would advise keeping buttoned up during the night,” I answer.
“Very well, Captain Walker, we’ll meet you at 0900,” Leonard says.
“See you then, Walker, out,” I say.
The afternoon passes. The sound of semis and vehicles fill the lot as the sun settles toward the western horizon. The yellow light of the sunny day filtering in through the open front doors slowly becomes an orange hue and the crews filter in after co
mpleting their tasks for the day. I still feel exhausted from the night prior and, with the coming meeting with Captain Leonard in the morning, we won’t be heading out in the AC-130 tonight. I am still intent on clearing out the area to deny night runners any sanctuary in our vicinity but it seems like something always comes up to delay plans we make. We still have a lot of area to search for survivors and every day we delay means the possibility of there being fewer left. There is also still the search for the soldiers’ families. I feel on edge and stretched thin. It’s almost too much to handle and think about. Once again I long for the relaxing days in the country, when each day was bliss and relatively stress free.
As everyone heads to the dining facility in shifts, chatter and the sound of meals being eaten drift through the interior. Small peals of laughter rise above the din from time to time. It’s nice to hear and brings with it, a semblance of normalcy. I make my way to the evening group meeting feeling tense about our meeting tomorrow as I don’t know how it will go or even how I want it to go. To catch everyone up, I start the meeting by outlining the conversation with Captain Leonard.
“So, any thoughts on how to handle tomorrow?” I ask, looking at each one.
“Well, I for one think it’s great they showed up and it makes me wonder how many more are out there in similar circumstances,” Frank answers. “However, with that said, I will throw in that ship captains are used to ultimate rule over their domain. Rightly so, considering their position, but this is especially true with sub captains. He’ll be thinking the military is still viable and want to be in charge. And, he’ll be the ranking member present depending on how our date of rank works out. We’ll have to contend with that.”
“Hey, that’s more than fine with me. He can be in charge and I’ll be responsible for making sure the vehicle tires are rotated on a regular basis,” I say, feeling very weary.
“Yeah, well, hmmmm…. You know we still need functional leadership. Maybe you can go kick tires to your delight later. Right now we need to maintain the leadership we have. At least in my opinion,” Greg replies.
“So, we’re back to the original question. How do we want to handle tomorrow?” I ask.
“I think we take several teams up and present ourselves as a military unit and just see how it goes from there. We welcome them in if they want to join us but they have to understand that they will have to fit within our current way of doing things,” Lynn responds.
“What are the chances of them joining us with those stipulations? I mean, they have a vessel that, depending on how much fuel they still have, can function for years. They may choose to stay onboard and use their sub as a sanctuary. I know I would consider it,” I say.
“I would give it about a fifty-fifty chance. They’re still new to the idea that the world is a much different place so they’ll come with the old world mentality,” Frank answers.
“Okay, so we go up presenting ourselves as a military unit and see where the conversation takes us. Lynn, how many teams do you think we should take?” I ask.
“I’m thinking five teams. I’d like to take more but that would put us pretty thin on escorts tomorrow. Assuming we are continuing on with our daily tasks,” she answers.
“I think we need to keep doing what we are doing. Every day we go out there is another day ahead we get,” I say.
“Okay, then I think five teams. That will provide a good front leaving us three full teams here,” Lynn says.
“We really need more teams,” I say.
“We’re almost finished with this current training group. We can look at expanding when they finish,” Lynn says.
“How many more will we have available?” Greg asks.
“We have a good group and we may be able to field another team out of the mix from those in the secondary training. Perhaps another one when those going through the primary training finish their secondary training,” she answers. I would have expected Bannerman to chime in by this point and look over. Instead, he is looking up at the ceiling with his head tilted to the side in contemplation.
“Any thoughts? What are you thinking?” I ask, directing the question to Bannerman. He startles and gives his head a diminutive shake as he comes out of whatever reverie he was in.
“Sorry, the idea of the sub and having fuel for years took me down a side track. You know, if we could bring a sub down into the Olympia port and hook it up, or any sub for that matter, into a power supply station, that could generate power for several years. There’s a lot of logistics that would need to be worked out but we could save wear and tear on the generators. Yes, we will have the solar and wind power but I was just thinking,” Bannerman answers.
We sit in silence contemplating Bannerman’s idea and the ramifications. Yes, it would save on the wear and tear for the wind turbine and generators but there is also the danger it poses if something goes wrong. If we didn’t have the sailors around to help monitor and maintain it, I know none of us would know anything about it. And if something did go wrong, we’d have to evacuate in a hurry. Plus, the rods will wear out after a time and, other than drive the sub out and sink it far offshore, we wouldn’t know what to do at that point in time. As good as the idea sounds, the idea of something going wrong doesn’t sit well with me. The silence continues as the gears churn in each of our heads.
“What about if something goes wrong or when the fuel rods need replaced?” I ask, interrupting the silence.
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Bannerman says. “Never mind, I was just thinking. So, where were we?”
“Taking five teams up,” Greg says.
“Alright, which teams?” I say.
“Black, Blue, Red, Charlie, and Echo,” Lynn answers. “We can head up in the buses and pick up troop transports on base on the way up.”
“Okay. It will take us over an hour to get up there so we should leave around 0700,” I say.
“We’ll form up in that order when we arrive. Do we know exactly where we are going?” Lynn asks.
“I’m guessing it won’t be too hard to find. I know where the base is and we’ll just drive toward the inlet once we arrive,” I answer. “What else do we have?”
“The mines have been laid around the perimeter out to a distance of twenty meters and claymores positioned outside of the entrances,” Drescoll says. “We’ve marked the mines and everyone knows not to step within that distance of the walls. The entrance into the compound has been left free.”
“In addition to the skylights, the walls around the maintenance areas were finished around noon and the vehicles were moved in to the buildings. We also moved vehicles into the hangars at both McChord and Lewis. The hangars have windows around the upper levels and are fairly bright during the day so we should be good there. We have progress on the inner compound wall. If we use the wall crews from up north, we can complete that in a couple of days. We also won’t need the escorts as we’re working inside so we’ll only need an escort team for the trucks driving supplies back from the distribution center. We’re slowly getting the water tower up. That will take the most time but I think we have a way to link the wind turbine to the water pump. We’ll be testing that soon,” Bannerman says.
“What about the guard towers?” Greg asks.
“I think we have a design that will work with an overhang and using fire escape ladders. The night runners made it up the ones in Kuwait so we’ll have to increase the height off the ground and lengthen the ladders. I still don’t have a design for the base but am thinking something along the lines of a control tower. That means we’ll have to pour concrete,” Bannerman answers.
“What about tilting storage containers up on end and filling them with concrete for the base? I know we built temporary control towers that way,” I say.
“Hmmmm…. Yeah, that will work. We’ll need to get more storage containers which will mean another escort team,” Bannerman says.
“That will only leave us one on standby and that means we’ll have no one for t
he night shift,” Lynn says.
“Then we either do a distribution center run or a storage container run. How are we on supplies?” I ask.
“We’re okay for now,” Bannerman says.
“Then let’s go for the storage containers. I’d feel better shoring up our defenses here,” I say.
“I second that,” Drescoll says.
“We’re also shoring up the animal shelters and locking the storage containers at night,” Bannerman says.
“I’d like to add that we need to look at quarters for everyone soon. Bannerman mentioned this and I think it’s important before winter sets in with the shorter days. That will mean more time spent indoors. We’ve already seen some tempers flare. There was one argument this afternoon. Apparently one guy was caught with someone else’s supposed girlfriend. This will only get more frequent if we don’t do something soon,” Frank says. “People are getting more comfortable and feeling safe so they’ll start focusing on other things once their basic needs are being met.”
“Ugh! Okay, let’s get our inner compound complete and work on the design when we get a chance. I’m thinking it should be along the lines of apartments built off the ground with retractable stairs. Maybe built on top of storage containers high enough so that night runners can’t scale or leap to them. And all interconnected with retractable ramps to each other and this building. We should also think about building each with hoists so we can haul equipment, food, furniture, and the like up,” I say.
“When things simmer down here, Bannerman and I will look into getting with others with the right expertise and come up with a design,” Franks says.
“What about our continued search for survivors in the area?” Drescoll asks.
“As much as I hate to say this, we’re going to have to do that on an ‘as we find time’ basis. We also have the search for the families of the soldiers that we’ll have to take care of in short order,” I answer.
